


Tales from Beta Kindergarten Side Stories

by Ajora Fravashi (ajora)



Series: Tales from Beta Kindergarten [3]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2018-09-13 15:42:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9130936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ajora/pseuds/Ajora%20Fravashi
Summary: Side-stories toTales from Beta Kindergartenthat don't fit within previously-planned story structures. This primarily follows the lives and backstories of a couple of older gems.





	1. The Ballad of Mist and Peridot Facet-1F2 Cut-2AA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There once was a pearl and a peridot who fell in love. And then they had a bunch of quartzes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fits within the time scale set in chapter 4 of Implantation. Sorry, guys, I just really wanted to do something happy for Mist and e1!Peridot before they parted ways, and also explain canon!Jasper. Canon!Jasper being a beta quartz is [@jaspuppy’s idea](http://jaspuppy.tumblr.com/post/151887385987/so-i-was-looking-up-different-types-of-quartz-to).

There were so many things Peridot could be working on. She could be doing dexterity exercises, or triple-checking the programming on the injectors, or quadruple-checking the Beta site injection formulas if she really wanted to disappoint herself. Given that Emerald had formally written off the Beta Kindergarten as a loss, she let Mist experiment with the formulation, too. What could it hurt when Mist knew enough to put most peridots to shame by now?

She was tinkering with one of the injectors now, and Peridot couldn't quite stifle the wellspring of pride as she watched a pearl do the work of a peridot in an arid environment that some would complain about. _My finest student is a **pearl**._ What would they think back home? The thought soon became uncomfortable as she remembered that too many defects in a gem was adequate grounds for shattering or harvesting. There wasn't anything wrong with Mist's gem, but Peridot knew she would be taken from her if anyone found out how far she had strayed from her designated purpose. It was why she said nothing when Mist ran off to relay information to the rebels. If they were successful, then Mist had a place where she could be herself. If they weren't, she could find them a place elsewhere. The older colonies were looser about the rules because the brighter, rarer gems always gravitated towards the new and exciting and that left the lower class gems a certain amount of freedom. But was that really the life Peridot wanted? She had been a Kindergartener for a good fifty thousand years and spent twenty-five thousand years before that as a general technician. She had spent so long in the service of gemkind that she found it difficult to imagine anything else. Where would she be without that purpose?

"Are you thinking dark thoughts again," Mist asked as she pulled off the glove that protected her gem from sparks and loose shrapnel. Something Peridot had to customize from similar gloves meant for peridots with hand gems. Mist set the glove aside and stepped across the baked remains of a stream's floodplain to plant a light kiss on the tip of her nose. "Whatever it is, it's not that bad."

If only. Peridot's arms settled around Mist's waist to draw her closer, which got her an infectious giggle. The giggle brought a brief smile to her face, even as Mist tried to smooth the persistent wrinkles between Peridot's eyebrows. "What are you working on?"

"Well," Mist began with a grin and a blatantly flirty flutter of her eyelashes, "I was reading your old reports and papers—you really are brilliant—and thought, what if we could create a beta quartz here? You already said that the injectors are reused and this Kindergarten is a waste of time and resources, so what could we possibly lose?"

It was an intriguing thought, but the heat and pressure requirements... "At least one injector. These are general use injectors, they're not that heat-resistant. And beta quartzes are usually made in rhyolite."

"But rhyolite is silicate-rich, which is similar enough to what we have here, chemistry-wise. And given that the heat issue is related to the melt tanks and the heating coils, I thought maybe we could line the melt tanks in ceramic tile for convection and heat resistance and re-calibrate the coils to put out more heat." Mist paused, looking thoughtful. "Oh! And pressure. The pressurization valves can be re-calibrated, too. The injector will be ruined when it's done, but we weren't going to use it again anyway."

Peridot grinned; of course Mist considered everything. "It's never been done in sandstone before, so I expect the beta quartz to stabilize into a pseudomorph of jasper. Probably the strongest jasper that's ever existed. Congratulations, my clever star, you've thought of something new."

"We're going to do it, then?" Mist's eyes practically twinkled as her arms settled around Peridot's shoulders.

Rather than answer her immediately, Peridot arranged her arms so that she could lift the pearl up and look up at her. Another transgression, another secret: a peridot lifting up a pearl. Mist squeaked in surprise at the sudden motion, but soon enough she broke into another giggle. "Of course we're going to do it! Let's burn through the carnelian mixtures so we can reuse the injectors for all the beta-type jaspers you could want."

Mist's delighted grin faded into that soft, loving smile of hers, and nothing else mattered. She leaned in until their noses touched. "I love you."

"I lo—" Peridot couldn't say more, as Mist continued the motion and began kissing her. And suddenly she wasn't, anymore.

She blinked and looked around, and wondered at the fact that she was now seeing through four eyes rather than two. And she was so much taller, and there was a lizard on the cliff far above either Mist or Peridot's line of sight. She reached out and... yes, that was Mist's gem on the back of her hand. She touched the back of her neck and found Peridot's. What on earth...?

"Fusion." Her voice was halfway between Peridot's age-deepened, slightly nasally tones and Mist's pleasant soprano. She raked her—theirs?—mind for a name, and it seemed to come naturally. "I'm Jadeite."

There was a sudden up-welling of panic within her as she thought more, and some other part tried to reassure her that it was okay, that this happened before, that—

And suddenly Peridot was back to herself. The panic abated slightly once she could think for herself again. Stars, that was...

"Incomparable," Mist finished for her. She brushed away the yellow-green hair around Peridot's face, which always had a calming effect on her. The panic cooled down into a low-burning worry. "Garnet says fusion can be an expression of love, too. It doesn't have to be for war."

Peridot didn't want to think about what it meant right now, or what it could mean for them if anyone who wasn't a rebel found out. She kissed away anything else Mist might have said on the matter, and thankfully they didn't fuse again. At least, not that night.


	2. Impossibilities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "In dreams and in love there are no impossibilities." - János Arany
> 
> Despite her best efforts to keep out of it, Peridot Facet-1F2 Cut-2AA got drafted into the war effort.

The modified injector crawled up the few feet to the marker they had to cobble together out of scratch, planted itself slightly off-center, and began drilling. It shook violently as the heating coils fought to reach temperatures they weren't designed for and the haphazardly-insulated mixture tank whirled away. Once the drill bit achieved the depth needed for gem implantation, the melted silica-and-iron-oxide mixture finally made it to the pressurization chamber by way of tubes and valves. The long, willowy hands around Peridot's upper arm tightened as the pressurization chamber shuddered dangerously as it compressed the molten rock and interwove the Maker's Mark around stabilizing molecules; it was not designed to take materials at this temperature range and at such pressures. The hands relaxed just slightly once the chamber pumped its results into the tubes that ran into the drillbit. The wait got easier as the chamber emptied and not a drop was spilled, and the hands around her arm finally eased entirely once she filled in the hole behind the injected beta-quartz. They both jumped a foot or so back when the drill disconnected from the wall, fell down the few feet to the canyon floor, and collapsed into a smoking ruin. 

"Do you think it worked?" Mist's voice was almost too quiet after the loud whine and crash of the drill. A hand remained at the crook of Peridot's elbow, of which she was all too aware. She patted it in reassurance.

"This wall is the straightest we have available, it looks like the drill made it all the way through, the injector didn't fail until after implantation, and we can keep it properly spaced from future gems because it's the first injection in this wall." There might have been a hint of pride in her voice, which Mist must have picked up on. "There's no reason for your project to fail."

Mist's response was a kiss to her cheek and the lacing of their fingers together, and two simple words that had more meaning woven into them than she expected. "Thank you."

Stars, it was tempting to sweep her up in a kiss. Peridot seldom initiated things between them because she certainly didn't want Mist to think she had any designs towards taking choice away from her, but it was hard to resist temptation when Mist looked so inviting. As if sensing her desire, Mist slipped in front of her and pressed against her with a grin. Far be it for Peridot to turn down such a lovely invitation. She unlaced their fingers to embrace her beloved and—

There was that infernal beeping from her tablet. Her hands settled on Mist's slim hips—

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Peridot grit her teeth and swore under her breath. Mist stepped back and flashed her a wry half-smile. "You should probably answer that."

"Right. Excuse me." Peridot took a moment to settle into a facade of bland neutrality and stepped away to pick up the tablet from the top of her tool box. She took care to angle the camera so that nothing of Mist's experiment was visible and answered the call.

Emerald looked displeased and a little disgusted. How she managed to pull off the scrunched-up nose effect _without_ a nose that scrunched that way was a bit beyond Peridot's ken. Her high-pitched, upper-crust Homeworld Facet Three accent sounded even more unbearable when it was loud and rebuking. "Peridot! Stars, it's getting harder and harder to get a hold of you. What are you _doing?_ "

"Kindergarten work." It was so easy to lapse into the bored detachment she affected towards upper-crust gems lately. She turned a bit to let the camera capture one of the still-standing injectors. "If you'll recall, the anorthite crews who were working for me were reassigned to stabilize the grounds for one of those new temples. They've since been pressed into service for the war effort. It's just been me and my pearl doing the Kindergarten work for a good three hundred years."

"It's cute that you trained your pearl to do tricks, but for now you'll have to store it away. A rebel attack took out several of our mechanics and we need you to step in to do ship repairs until Homeworld can send replacements."

The bored detachment slipped just a little before she thought to prop the mask back up again. She had been _enjoying_ her time with Mist and wasn't quite ready to return to reality yet. "I've been a Kindergartener for fifty thousand years. Surely you can find someone else—"

"You were a technician before that. Report to the Galaxy Warp as soon as possible so that one of my nephrites can give you your work orders. Good day." And with that, the little green gem closed the connection and the video screen went blank.

Mist was pressed into her side in mere moments, and she laced their fingers together. "I don't want you to go," Mist whispered. She sounded almost too quiet after Emerald's strident tones.

"I have to." It wasn't like she _wanted_ to do work normally reserved for albites and lower-grade peridots. She scrubbed her face with her free hand as she considered their options. None of them looked good. "There will be questions, otherwise. Especially with the rebels running around."

Wordlessly, Mist slipped into her arms, face pressed into her neck. Peridot's hands settled along her lower back out of habit. The silence allowed Peridot time to think on the all the things that could go wrong in her absence. They remained embraced until Mist finally spoke. "What will I do while you're gone?"

"Keep yourself safe." Peridot pulled away just enough to nudge up her chin to meet her eyes. Her fingers brushed a light a path from Mist's chin to her cheek. "Please understand that these are not orders. If you like, you're welcome to inject more gems. I've already shown you how to make an insertion point marker in lieu of using a working guidance system, and the injectors are designed to work without special powers. If you sense any danger whatsoever, hide yourself in the shuttle or the command post. I'll take my tablet so I can check in with you through the shuttle. Or, if you think your friends can shelter you…"

"I'll stay. I want to be here when you come back." Mist leaned in to press a kiss to her lips. It didn't last long enough, but Peridot couldn't afford to draw attention to either of them. She left with another quick kiss and was at the Galaxy Warp in minutes.

.*.

Fourteen days. It had taken Homeworld fourteen exhaustively long days to send enough albites to handle the maintenance and repair needs of the war effort. That none of the Diamonds sent any peridots along with the albites for more complicated jobs suggested that they weren't willing to risk the loss of resources. Albites were common, and in a pinch even a senior albite might be able to get a computer system working long enough to send a ship to the scrap heap, but Peridot wasn't looking forward to suddenly being at some power-hungry gem's beck and call just because there weren't any other peridots around. Still, the albites' arrival meant a reduction in basic repair work for her, and that let her focus on the more sophisticated work. At twenty days into her absence from the Kindergartens, a team of five peridots finally arrived to take over. Peridot had just enough wits about her to orient them before she left on the warp pad.

Twenty days of hard work with no breaks. Peridot chuckled humorlessly under her breath as she stepped off the warp pad and down the sandstone steps into familiar territory. Her head felt disconnected from the rest of her, and her gait was uneven. She just needed to make sure Mist was still safe before she could sit and gather herself. She felt along the rough stone walls to avoid bumping into anything; it was a dark night and the stars couldn't illuminate a crack in the earth the way they could an open field. For the millionth time, she cursed the fact that her gem was in the back of her neck and not in front where it might do some good as a light source. Perhaps there was a lantern in her toolbox, but that would involve actually stopping to find it. She couldn't stop. Not yet.

The wall stopped and turned, and Peridot shambled reluctantly, grudgingly out into the open. Just a few more steps and she would be at the wall across from the warp pad's alcove. She took them slowly to keep from tripping over anything, feeling out her way with each step. Halfway through, she grumbled at herself for her short-sightedness. She should have had that lantern out before she got on the warp pad. It was just so hard to think after twenty days of work. Hard to stay on her feet, too. 

Then, miraculously, there was a soft, radiant light approaching her. It had just the subtlest tinge of green. It fell on her for a moment. She blinked into the light, unable to think of any way to react that wasn't immediate relief and the persistent dulling effect of exhaustion. The light started bobbing as it approached her and she waited for it with no inclination to defend herself.

"Peridot?" Mist called out in the darkness, her voice frantic. The bobbing light approached faster. Relief would have swept through Peridot's form and reinvigorated her at any other time, but the best she could muster at the moment was mild, dulled-out gratitude. At least she sounded okay.

The light stopped when Mist drew near enough for Peridot to discern her features limned in the most delicate shade of green. It was her gem that was glowing; Mist had approached her with her left arm draped over her chest. Peridot couldn't be bothered to feel silly for being absent-minded at the moment. Everything felt fuzzy and not quite there. She reached out with a shaking hand to brush her fingers along Mist's cheek. She paused for a moment to relish the faint ghost of satisfaction, and then she collapsed in a dead faint.

.*.

Peridot strode along one of the main ground-level avenue of her colony, arm in arm with her beloved Mist. The blue-white sun was bright in the white sky, and the great skyscrapers rose high above. Peridot remembered the elegant statues of gems long past, and they stood in front of important buildings and fountains as they always had. Lapis lazulis gathered around the central fountain to gossip. Aquamarines fluttered to and fro, talking of Jeremejevite's symphonies. A faint, familiar tune wafted in the air. Other gems nodded respectfully to her and Mist as they passed. It was idyllic. Perfect. Home. She was home, and the work was done, and she had her beloved Mist with her.

Soon she came upon Blue Diamond's palanquin. Blue Diamond greeted her and said something she couldn't quite catch. It felt like praise, and she was practically aglow from it. Blue Diamond then gestured behind her, and she turned to see a green quartz. She stopped short, stunned, and she couldn't remember why. Prasiolite's easy grin was lopsided and it pulled at the gem in her right cheek, and there was a sudden ache that she couldn't pin down. _The first gem I made._ Prasiolite had come out textbook perfect, as good a fighter as they came. She couldn't figure out why she was feeling the way she did. Prasiolite gave a soundless laugh and took her hand, dragging her along to an alley. Mist followed, stumbling along until she regained her footing.

The alley opened into her first Kindergarten. Peridot Facet-2W3 Cut-4DF waited with arms folded below the white rhombus on her uniform, lips ever so slightly turned up in suppressed pride. There was something off about the gem who had created her, but Peridot couldn't figure out what it was. They were joined by quartzes, beryls, spodumenes, corundums, felspars, and more gems than she could count offhand. But she recognized every single one. She made them, after all. Some got no emotional reaction from her, but she ached upon seeing the quartzes. There were so many of them. Why did that bother her?

The group parted as something shown bright and white behind them. The grey-white gem walked up to her, cleaner and more fiery than she had ever been in li— ( _stop…_ ). Her grey eyes burned with righteousness, as if she herself would take on all the Di— ( _no, **stop**_ ). Albite Facet-2W6 Cut-1SJ stopped before her, eyes searching hers and seeming to find her lacking. Still, she took Peridot's hand and yanked her along. Mist lost her grip on her arm and was swallowed by the crowd, and any attempts Peridot made to go back for her were stymied by the strength of Albite's will. She was drawn closer and closer to the light, until it washed out everything around her. 

They walked for a time. Peridot could not tell for how long. Her pace was faltering and uncertain; Albite as sure-footed as she had been the last time Peridot had seen her in person ( _before— **stop that at once**_ ).

_"Even a coward like you has a place in a revolution."_

_"This is ridiculous. You'll be—" (please, please stop)_

_"Better than being a slave. Others will pick up the banner of truth. But you, your cowardice comes in handy. If I fall," (don't make me remember) "you'll hide like you always do. Keep the memory of the Great Maker secret when White Diamond's propaganda machine starts erasing our history. Keep it safe."_

_(… better a surviving coward than a dead martyr…)_

The memory faded with each step, and Peridot couldn't quite remember the details anymore. She looked ahead at Albite's shock of short white hair, at the intact gem at the left side of her head, and… Before she could question why this felt wrong, she was taken to _her_.

She had dark grey skin and long, dusty blue hair. She sat on the ground as if anything so prosaic was good enough for her. In form she was similar to a rose quartz and she was not much larger, but she breathed with a steady rhythm in that way that suggested the need for an autonomous respiration system. Her eyes were closed, and thick black lashes lay flush against her cheeks. She was flesh and blood, not a gem. She had been dead for nearly a million years. 

"Great Maker," Peridot murmured under her breath; this stranger looked so much like the statues of her. She knelt before the one who created gemkind, as reverent as she could be.

"Who are you?" The voice was soft and unusually mild, but it resonated in Peridot's head with such clarity that she never could have misheard it.

"Peridot Facet-1F2 Cut-2AA, my—" how does one address their maker, anyway? "Great Maker."

"Your designation, given to you before you formed. Who are you?" The words were repeated in exactly the same way.

Peridot mentally stumbled. How else could she answer that? "I'm a Kindergartener. Trained and certified under Peridot Facet-2W3 Cut-4DF."

"That is only what you do. Who are you?"

Peridot's hands folded together, fingers tightly interlacing. When was the last time she wrung her hands like this? "I… I'm good at my job. And a coward. It's safer when I keep my head down and go along with what's expected of me."

The Great Maker reached out, her hand settling on Peridot's in reassurance. It was warm with blood pulsing under the skin, heavy with flesh and bone, and it stilled her impulse to wring her hands to the point of pain. "Things others have said to you and about you. Who are you?"

"I—I don't know."

Those full, dark lips quirked in a sympathetic smile. "What do you want?"

Peridot looked behind her, but there was nothing but a white haze as far as the eye could see. No indication of where she had come from, and no sign of where to go. Albite stood by. Albite, who had been shattered for defying White Diamond and spitting in her face before her execution. Albite, whose shards were sent to seed seven pearls. After all, what greater punishment could there be? Peridot felt a lump in her throat and stinging at the corners of her eyes as the memory came back. She'd tried so hard to forget. "I want everything to go back the way it was. Before Homeworld started changing. Before Albite had to—"

"You know that cannot be, and you know why." The Great Maker's voice was impossibly gentle. Her hand squeezed Peridot's lightly. "What do you want?"

"I want…" She tried to steady herself with her breath, but it kept coming out ragged. Loss was part of the job, she always knew it was, and still she kept track of the gems she created until the loss got too painful to bear. Until she learned to package her feelings and shove them in the furthest corners of her mind and keep them there until she forgot of their existence. "Prasiolite's been shattered for thousands of years. Most of the quartzes I made are gone because the Diamonds want more warriors. The one who made me, she was punished for participating in a rebellion. I want them back." 

"What do you want?"

Peridot pulled away her hands to rub viciously at the tears she'd tried for so long to bury. What was wrong with her? She thought she was stronger than this. "I just… want things to be better. I—I want to be able to go back home with Mist and just… be with her. As partners, not mistress and slave. And I want her to be happy, but she won't be until things are better for her."

The Great Maker unfolded her legs to scoot forward on her knees, until she could take Peridot in her arms. She was so soft, and warm, and her hand on Peridot's back had a reassuring weight to it. She stroked Peridot's back for who knew how long, until Peridot's breath finally stabilized. "That path requires great courage and fortitude. It requires that you know who you are, what you want, why you are there, and what you have to live for. Moreover, it demands more from you than you can possibly imagine. When you are ready, I will ask these questions of you again. But for now, wake."

.*.

Peridot was aware of two things upon waking: that she had been crying in her sleep, and that she was in someone's arms. A minute after waking and she recognized that she was lying with Mist in the nest they had made of a defunct injector. The bedding was white and soft, and Mist was stroking her back and humming softly as she came to. The sky was bright blue and entirely cloudless. 

"I don't like dreaming, either," Mist whispered to her. Peridot groaned and pulled her closer, burying her face in the pearl's midriff. The hand stroking her back moved to the setting of her gem. "I end up remembering things I'd rather forget. Do you remember what you were dreaming about?"

Though she raked her mind as much as she could, Peridot was only able to remember two things: Prasiolite's easy grin and Albite's poise. It probably was enough to make her cry. She wiped at her eyes and sighed. "Just shattered gems. That's all."

"It's enough." Mist shifted a little, just enough to kiss the top of Peridot's head. Peridot relaxed in her arms as Mist hummed again. It was an old tune, but Peridot couldn't place it. No matter. It was nice and soothing, and Mist had a beautiful voice.

Mist didn't speak again until the tune was over. "Can we just lie here for a bit? I missed you so much."

"…Yeah. Missed you, too." Mist felt wonderful in her arms after so long without, light and cuddly and welcoming. It was like coming home. She couldn't imagine being parted again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was that really the Great Maker, or was she just a manifestation of Peridot's conscience? Who knows ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯. She's only been dead a million years. Albite, along with the rest of Peridot's backstory, are part of a side-story called _The Grindstone_ that I haven't gotten anywhere near finishing. Honestly, I kinda want to get a bunch of fluff posted before then, because it's not a lot of fun. And, believe it or not, this chapter was supposed to be fluff. Whoops. This is apparently what happens when you write with the soundtrack of Pan's Labyrinth on loop.
> 
> Also? The Great Maker's title and her questions are a giant Babylon 5 homage.


	3. Interludes and Examinations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A pearl could never be a _real_ Kindergartener, right?

The stars were beautiful at night in the Beta Kindergarten, and the atmospheric light scattering softened their glare and filtered out more distant stars so that the nearer ones could shine brighter. Through the thick glass of the defunct, gutted injector's hatch, their light was further softened into glows that blurred out the black space around them. Mist loved the effect, especially when she was cuddling in Peridot's arms in the nest she made of the defunct injector. It was like everything outside was a bad dream and this was all that mattered. 

"So why do you think we can emulate organics so well," she asked idly. The silence was comfortable, but she took any opportunity to get Peridot to talk like she used to. She missed the rambling. "This kind of thing serves no functional purpose."

For a moment, her lover was silent. When she spoke, it was with the whispered quality of an ancient memory half-forgotten. "The Great Maker gave us eyes to witness the majesty of the cosmos and ears to listen to the remnants of the birth of the universe so that we may know that we are but a small part of it. She gave us mouths to speak our thoughts, tongues to taste even when we need no sustenance. She gave us the ability to adapt our bodies to each other so that we could demonstrate our love and companionship. In her magnanimity, she gave us the capacity for love. In her wisdom, she gave us the capacity to emulate organics and experience their pleasures and pains. So it has been said."

Mist still had no idea what to make of this thing Peridot seem to believe in. The only other gems she knew who followed such beliefs were few and far between, and all of them were either Peridot's age or older. "How do you know she's real?"

"I'll tell you a secret." Peridot's hand squeezed lightly, reassuringly over hers. It was warm against her gem. "Something only Kindergarteners know for sure."

"Are you sure you want to tell me, then? I'm not a real Kindergartener." Her voice was teasing, but she still wasn't sure if she should be privy to this sort of information. Which was terribly ironic in light of the fact that she regularly passed along information to the Crystal Gems, but that information was always the impersonal sort that had nothing to do with Peridot herself.

Peridot's answer was quick enough that she had probably thought about it before. "Of course you are. You know at least as much as a journeygem Kindergartener. You would have no problem getting your certification in a blind test.

"Now then, this is passed from Kindergartener to Kindergartener once the receiving gem has demonstrated a loyalty to gemkind that supersedes all else. Pressed into all gems upon mixture and compaction is a bundle of molecular circuitry. We call it the Maker's Mark. We don't really know what it does or what would happen if we remove it, but many believe it was created by the Great Maker and is the seed of our true consciousness. After the first rebellion, White Diamond demanded that the first peridot remove this bundle from the Kindergarten process. The peridot said that she couldn't, for it was too deeply embedded in the gem seed to extract without rendering the gem inert. What she didn't say was that its creation was a process taught to the peridot by the Great Maker, and all gems are made with it. There are many arguments for and against the existence of the Great Maker, and the presence of that circuitry is used as evidence." 

Mist glanced up. Or she tried to; it was difficult to pick out features when the starlight was too dim and restricted by the canyon walls to illuminate much of anything. "But surely there's more than that. You don't seem like the type to believe in old stories."

"There is. Rumor says that out in the oldest gem colony, there's a moonstone who claims to be one of the first gems made by the Great Maker. As the story goes, she will pinpoint the pulsar that was once the Great Maker's home star and tell you her name, should you ask. Since before Albite's Rebellion, there have been efforts to discredit Moonstone. Why go through so much effort for a gem if she's as confused as others claim?" Peridot paused, as if needing to get her thoughts in order. Mist took the silence as opportunity to snuggle closer. "Then there's the fact that gems are only ever made through injecting materials in a matrix. We need technology to self-perpetuate; no other species needs that. We cannot self-heal. Why do we glitch when our gems sustain damage? That is the behavior of a computer, not any other known species. Aside from the first colony, there are no records of gem civilization before White Diamond founded Homeworld. Where do our writing systems come from, or our architecture? Where does the technology for injectors come from? Why are we able to so easily mimic organic experiences and shapeshift organs without needing to understand how to do so? Why do our forms become soft and yielding when we're together like this? What purpose do our forms serve in this configuration when other shapes would be more convenient? And so on."

She let the silence last for a while. It was a lot to take in, and Mist appreciated taking the moment to relax and just think on things. "You've thought a lot about this."

There was a brief laugh, edged with that self-deprecating _something_ that made Mist wonder what kind of gem Peridot might have been before Homeworld ground her down and polished her into the ideal little cog in its machine. "Too much, perhaps."

"No such thing." It was a marvel that she no longer felt horrified at herself for voicing a rebuke, as mild and teasing as it was. Not even the slightest twinge of self-consciousness or guilt bothered her anymore. At least when it came to Peridot. She nuzzled lightly against Peridot's neck. "I like you the way you are."

Peridot's chest rumbled with that deep chuckle of hers, and the hand covering her gem protectively moved to drape around her back. "You could be with any gem you want. Are you sure you want to settle for me?"

The words didn't bother Mist as much as the implications hidden underneath the way they followed the unvoiced self-deprecation and that wry chuckle of hers. She ignored the little part of her that wanted to deny that any other gem would _want_ to love a pearl and pressed on. "It's not 'settling', it's… You're so smart, and kind, and I never thought anyone would care about me like you do. And… and remember when we first met? You were so formal and respectful even when you didn't know me as… you know." Words were terrible for conveying everything she felt, and she wished Peridot wasn't still so uncomfortable with fusion. Fusion would make things so much easier. "I just… it's not settling if I love you and the way you are to me."

For several long moments, Peridot was so silent and still that she didn't even breathe. Mist worried that she had said something wrong, and she was ready to backtrack and apologize when Peridot started breathing again. "I'm sorry." 

"Whatever for?" she asked, bewildered. Her mind dredged up all her doubts and brought up new ones, and paraded all of them in succession. She stiffened with tension. 

"Nothing you did." Peridot, sensing her distress, hugged her close. It helped her relax just enough that the tension abated a little. "I'm sorry for the orders. For ever thinking of you as somehow lesser just because of how our society is structured."

The tension left entirely as she sighed with relief and a little bit of warmth curled inside her. A traitorous thought of ' _I don't deserve you_ ' flitted through her, which she did her best to ignore. Peridot's free hand, the one that wasn't tucked under her head, stroked Mist's back reassuringly. "You don't treat me like that anymore. You never really did, even with the orders."

"Still…" Mist thought it best to derail whatever argument Peridot might make, because they would be fixated on self-recriminations forever if they focused on the past. She shifted up just enough to stop Peridot with a kiss. It started as a peck, and soon enough it deepened to the point where she was pretty sure that Peridot wasn't thinking anymore. Kisses were wonderful distractions. When finally they broke the kiss, they laid in silence for several long moments before Peridot spoke again. "Let's try something when it's light enough to see where we're going. If you like."

"What is it?"

"Heh." She could almost picture the smirk on Peridot's face. "A surprise, for now. You can decide for yourself whether you want to go with it in the morning."

"Oh, fine. At least we can keep ourselves entertained until then." With that, Mist went in for another kiss.

Morning came entirely too soon. It started as a dark grey crack framed by canyon walls that lightened to bright blue as the hours passed, and the actual light of day did not truly penetrate into the deep canyon until mid-morning. It provided just enough light to walk around in without too much fear of tripping over something. Peridot left to find her tablet, and Mist remained behind to enjoy her nest. In the light of day, her usual doubts faded and allowed her to contemplate nicer things. If they could only stay here forever, forgotten by both Homeworld and rebels, she would be perfectly content. All they needed was each other. These sandstone walls were more of a home to Mist than anything on Homeworld, and she was sure Peridot wouldn't miss her apartment much. 

Peridot returned soon enough, though at a slower pace than she had been using when she left. Her attention was on the tablet, which she was working on as she walked. She stopped at the side of the injector and looked away from the screen to watch Mist for the moment. Her eyes softened as she handed Mist the tablet.

There was some sort of application form on the screen, with the applicant name provided as Peridot Facet-1F2 Cut-2AB, Blue Diamond Colony 1. Under the heading of Mentor was Peridot's identification. Her eyes were then drawn to the bolded text: " **Comprehensive Kindergarten Certification Test, Journeygem Grade**." She didn't understand. "Peridot?"

"I can't change the gem type. I'm sorry. But I provided the identification of the peridot who should have come out below me. Her gem was a dud, so she never formed. At this point, there's no good reason for anyone to verify the information." Then Peridot's voice took that officious tone she used when conducting business, and Mist might have sat a little straighter in the bedding to mirror the stiff-backed posture she'd taken. "This is the official written test all potential Kindergarteners must take for their certification. You've already completed the practical, and it will be considered a success once that beta quartz of yours emerges. Once you start, I cannot help you. Is this something you would like to do?"

She wished she could change the identification, but the gem type field was locked. What would she even put in it, anyway? Pearls didn't have Kindergarten identification strings like normal gems, they were commissioned and made on demand. Even when they were sold off, they never lost their original owners' names. She would still be considered Trapiche Emerald Facet-4B7 Cut-6BR Pearl #2, even after being passed on to different owners. That was half the reason she wanted a name that had nothing to do with gems. 

Resolving to shelve her personal issues for the time being, Mist went on to the test. When she skimmed the first page of questions, she glanced back at Peridot. "Are you sure this is the test? It looks too easy."

"That's how they lull you into a false sense of security. It trips up everyone the first time around." Peridot paused, allowing the mentor facade to slip. "You want to do it, then?"

Mist considered saying no, if only for the moment. But what could she lose, really? The identification wasn't even hers, so it wouldn't matter if she succeeded or not. Yet, she wanted to take this just to prove that she _could_ pass, if just to herself. "I'll do it."

"Good luck, then." Peridot bent to kiss her on the forehead. She might have lingered longer than necessary, but it never felt like long enough. Mist's attention returned to the test once Peridot left, ostensibly to give her privacy in which to work.

The first few pages of questions were almost insultingly easy; they covered the very basics of chemistry, physics, and astronomy. Still, she took the time to make sure she got the right answers before moving on. Then, somewhere past page ten, the questions started getting harder. Solve for _x_. Fill out this blank table of elements. In the example given, which element is missing? Provide all elemental variations available for this particular molecule. Which of the following matrices are ideal for quartz formation? Explain the effects of erosion on the matrices provided. Explain the geological effects of tidal locks on planets as they apply to the Kindergarten process. Refer to this theoretical world when answering the next few questions. Define and describe quartz inversion. Identify the following crystal structures. Explain how you would identify the following rocks should no technology be available to you. So on and so forth. There were too many trick questions, and she had to go over those several times before she understood which answers were right. It took hours, and she had to reposition herself several times just to stay comfortable. More than once had she wanted to give up. 

It was nearly evening by the time she completed the test. Peridot took the tablet when she was done, congratulated her for sticking with it, and settled comfortably next to her to check the answers. It was a long process, and at one point she ended up lying back with her head in Peridot's lap. Peridot played with her hair every now and then as she murmured under her breath over the more in-depth questions. "You misspelled 'apophyllite', but the chemical formula is correct so I'll mark it right. … How did you get Benitoite's Theorem of Quantum Tunnelling right? I never covered that."

Mist's shoulder lifted in a half-hearted shrug. "Mostly guesswork based on how the question was worded and how you described the principles of quantum physics."

"Clever." And Peridot continued reviewing her answers. 

Night fell by the time she was done, and Peridot handed her the tablet. Its light reflected off the glass of the injector hatch, allowing her to see a little more than she did normally at night. It gave their features a dim, almost eerie glow. The screen showed a list of applicants and their test scores, filtered by mentor. Her false identity was at the top of a list of six applicants, with a score of 98.6% correct. It took a moment for her to register that that score was _hers_ , that she was _better_ than Peridot's earlier students, and she couldn't stop the grin from nearly splitting her face when she realized what it meant. A pearl had just passed a test meant for the brightest peridots. 

"Oh, that's not all." Peridot took the tablet, removed the filter to display all five hundred and sixty applicants, highlighted the false identity, and turned it back over to her. Her eyes glinted as Mist reviewed the list. She was fifth in overall rank, three rungs above Peridot herself. "You did well. Congratulations."

Mist couldn't articulate her thoughts; they were a jumble of emotions tangled into bright, happy knots she couldn't hope to put into words. She squealed and threw herself into Peridot's arms, instead. They enveloped her, warm and protective, and she could feel Peridot practically thrumming with pride. She would always have too many misgivings, but at least she would no longer have to doubt her abilities. 


	4. Notes and Delenda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter that was here has been fixed up under the careful eye of a kind soul and moved to the first part of the next chapter. This here is just notes. Sorry about that.

**On deciding geography** :

In the show, Beta Kindergarten looks a lot like Antelope Canyon. Few other slot canyons are as distinct, and the AU quality of SU allows for a certain amount of geographic revisionism. I'd assume that Lapis Lazuli had been on earth to terraform, and expand the size and scale of Antelope Canyon in particular to allow injectors to fit between cliffs. I'd also considered the nearby Paria River canyon, but the problem with that is the active river. So Antelope Canyon it was.

Antelope Canyon is also nearby to several distinct locations: the [Colorado River](https://www.glencanyon.org/media_center/photos), [Betatakin](https://www.nps.gov/nava/index.htm), [Horseshoe Bend](https://horseshoebend.com/), and the [Paria plateau](http://www.americansouthwest.net/arizona/vermilion_cliffs/national_monument.html). A little further out is the [Grand Canyon](https://www.nps.gov/grca/index.htm), ancestral Puebloan cities such as [Chaco Canyon](https://www.nps.gov/chcu/index.htm) and [Mesa Verde](https://www.nps.gov/meve/index.htm), and sites like the [Sunset Crater](https://www.nps.gov/sucr/index.htm) volcano that would have had its last eruption during the time the Beta Kindergarten gems in this fic are close with the neighboring humans.

It took a while to decide on the Prime Kindergarten, but in the end I'd gone with the Linville Gorge area in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. It would have been within a day's train ride from Rehoboth Beach, which is the roughly the time frame of On the Run. I thought the geology of the Blue Ridge Mountains was perfect; I have a friend who lives near them who says she finds quartzes like amethyst and rose quartz all the time. Most of the rock forming the mountains are granitic charnockite, igneous formations, and limestone, many of which are prime material for the formation of large-crystal quartz. Basically, if I'd wanted to build a Kindergarten, I would have gone with the Blue Ridge Mountains, too.

In regards to Homeword's galaxy, the show gave us a few clues: it's visible to the naked gem eye in the summer night sky, and it's visible to the northern hemisphere. Relative closeness helps. This left me with a couple of options, but I ended up with the [Triangulum Galaxy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulum_Galaxy) as the best candidate. At 2.9 million light years away, it’s pretty close. In good conditions, it’s visible to the human naked eye. Its galactic center is basically a stellar nursery. The prominence of H II regions suggests that it's a young galaxy and is promising for the manufacture of heavier elements that occur in gems. If Homeworld is established in a younger galaxy, it could explain why the Gem Empire hasn’t run across anything like humans before. Organic life requires certain conditions to evolve, and it took billions of years for it to get advanced enough to form civilizations on Earth. However, as I am not an astronomer, I'm probably wrong on several points.


	5. The Grindstone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Diamonds have had nearly a million years to perfect it. It enforces compliance to the rigid classification system gems are made for, ensures that those who do not fit in their roles are too terrified to speak out, and even rebellion serves its purpose. It is the grindstone of Homeworld itself, built to polish down all gems until they comply. This is simply the story of two gems who have lived in its influence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so I had originally intended to split this in two, then I asked someone to look over it and they did wonders for making the fic clearer and overall _better_. Then I added a little more detail to Mist's side and here we are now. So, special thanks to [DrJekyl](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DrJekyl/pseuds/DrJekyl), who is an amazing author and an overall wonderful person.
> 
> I'll just be turning the past version of this into a notes chapter.

There was a lull in the war, something no one but sapphires would have expected. The last major offensive against Homeworld installations had not gone well for the Crystal Gems. A human mound system got caught in the crossfire, which Homeworld had little regard for and the Crystal Gems did not have the numbers to defend. They retreated, presumably so that Rose Quartz could treat the injured, and that allowed Homeworld to shore up defenses around the more vulnerable structures on Earth.

With little else to occupy them now that they had used up what they could of the materials available at the Beta Kindergarten, Peridot took Mist out with her on a brief shuttle trips to some sites of geological curiosity that had caught her interest during the survey for potential Kindergartens. Mist was delighted by the prospect of traveling with someone else without having to worry that she might be abducted the moment she stepped off a warp pad. She had been extraordinarily lucky so far, but the anxiety of _what if_ returned with every trip she took alone. She was with Peridot, and Peridot was so protective of her that she was sure nothing would happen if they were together.

Sometimes Mist wondered where she fit in the grand scheme of things. She wasn't a pampered, newly-made pearl content to be a comfortable little bauble, but she wasn't the Renegade either, bold and seemingly determined to fight all of Homeworld for her freedom. The entirety of Mist's participation in the Rebellion was passing on information.

Did the fact that she liked being taken care of and loved by Peridot make her less worthy of freedom than those pearls who wanted to fight?

Every time she thought about it, she always ended up with the realization that she was being horribly selfish for limiting her participation in the Rebellion to what was safest and most beneficial for her. She certainly wasn't brave enough to pick up a sword or go on any of the missions the rebel pearls undertook, and the thought alone unnerved her.

The shuttle was parked on the banks of the river, a few feet away from a waterfall's spillway. The white of the spray, the bright blue waters, and the lush greenery of vegetation contrasted sharply against the red-orange sandstone cliffs around them. The water pooled at the base of the waterfall and cascaded down a series of light orange, iron oxide-stained travertine terraces before continuing its course as a river. It smelled of wet limestone and sun-baked sand, of warm green leaves and hundreds of blooming flowers.

It was gorgeous.

"I wish we could just… stay here, together," Mist said at last, her voice wistful. "Away from… everything."

Peridot gave a noncommittal hum as she pulled her goldsmith's tools out of her greaves at a makeshift workbench; what Mist had hoped would be a vacation looked like it was going to be Peridot's excuse to work on something else. Probably her toys, given the delicate scale of her tools. Mist sighed and stopped before the bench. "Darling, you don't need to work all the time. It's too lovely here to work. Come play with me."

"It's not work."

Mist wanted to drag Peridot out into the water, but why force it if she could tempt? Or at least try to. She stepped out onto the surface of the rich, larimar-blue waters and tried out a few simple moves.

Stars, she hadn't danced in _ages_. Peridot had requested a dance or two early on, in that stiltedly-formal way of hers that Mist now recognized as discomfort, but not in the past two thousand years. Before that, Grandidierite was more interested in having a crying punching bag, and Zircon preferred mind games. Trapiche Emerald, though… Emerald liked to criticize even when there was nothing wrong with her form, or played pranks that made her flush with humiliation and doubt her abilities and worth as a pearl. For nearly her entire lifetime, her ability to perform the kinds of things all pearls were expected to do was all she had. It was all she was good for, and Emerald was good at driving that point home. Now here she was with no expectations to live up to beyond those she set for herself. It was nice to just _dance_ for herself and not worry about living up to some ever-changing standard.

She started with basic steps, progressing through increasingly complicated moves when she was satisfied with her skills. The roar of the waterfall helped her drown out the ghosts of her past and focus on the here and now. In time, she alternated between difficult and simple moves until she finally wound down to resting position and opened her eyes.

Peridot was staring in open awe. It was more flattering than she expected it to be, and she smiled back. It took Peridot a moment to break the silence between them. "I've never seen you dance like that." There was an unspoken question in there somewhere, but it remained unvoiced.

"I've never wanted to dance for myself before," she replied. "I like it more when I don't have to do it for someone else's entertainment."

Peridot's jaw worked for a moment as she rummaged through and discarded several responses. Finally, she settled on; "I shouldn't have watched. I'm sorry."

"No, it's fine! You're the only one I want watching me." She stretched out one thin arm in invitation. Every now and then she considered just venting to Peridot, but she always got too nervous about the outcome that the moment passed. But now, far away from any warp pad or gem installation, she had to say something while it was still safe to do so. "Join me? I want you to know something about me."

Peridot set aside her tools and removed the material greaves that served to ground her; they would only pull her down into the water. As she walked out onto the impossibly blue surface, it rippled around her footsteps until she stepped into Mist's arms. They settled into a slow waltz that was ever so slightly out of sync. It was just enough to avoid fusion. Mist didn't press the issue, because she knew fusion still made Peridot nervous, but she wanted to be closer. Out here, there would be no one else to know all the awful little things she wanted to tell Peridot. It took so much effort just to put enough of her thoughts together without shying away from all the memories that they went through several steps before she managed to talk.

"My first owner, Trapiche Emerald, liked to make me dance." Mist paused to gather herself before speaking again. She tried not to think about the words as they spilled out, because surely she would break down and cry if she had to reflect on any of it. "Except her idea of participating was to pull the rug out from under me, or tweak the gravity settings in her quarters. Then she would deliberately deny that she had anything to do with my mistakes, when she wasn't laughing at me and calling me clumsy. It was very entertaining for her, you see. Almost as entertaining as that manual. She liked her fun. If she needed a favor, or if she wanted to get out of paying for something, she would loan me to the other gem to… do things with. I was her second pearl, and she was still new. The first one was driven to hysterics and harvested. I was lucky. When I stopped responding to her, she got bored and sold me off to purchase another, instead."

Peridot stiffened in her arms, but Mist pressed on because there were so many unvoiced feelings jumbled up inside her. They rotted and festered in the dark at the back of her mind, and she was sure they would keep doing so until they burst like overripe fruit. Thinking about any of them for too long made her feel worse and worse about herself. She needed to unearth everything in her past, regardless of the pain, if she was going to be able to escape that cycle. "The second was a pink Zircon. She specialized in property disputes. Emerald was a novice next to her. Zircon loved playing mind games and sticking her hands everywhere, and that was when she was in a good mood. When she wasn't, she'd say the worst things you can imagine. Or shout them." Mist tried not to think of those things, but it was just as hard to block them out now as it was then. The way Zircon was able to talk her into doubting her own thoughts and experiences was worse, and she still couldn't articulate _why_. She derailed, instead, which helped level out her voice. "I think she was involved in something illegal. She had too many pearls coming and going, and she knew how to alter and forge ownership documents. When she got tired of the way I disconnected during her fits, she gave me to one of her minions."

Peridot's face was stony in that way that suggested that she was furious and trying not to show it, and she was so stiff in Mist's arms that it was a wonder she hadn't stopped entirely. Her steps were mechanical, serviceable, like she was concentrating on keeping silent and allowing Mist to talk as much as she wanted. It was almost reassuring that someone else knew, now. That someone else knew and didn't dismiss what she experienced as the way things were.

"So I was given to Grandidierite. You know how grandidierites tend to report what's going on and enjoy a higher status than their gem grade normally get?" Mist said, not quite able to keep the bitter anger from her voice. Though, stars, she didn't _want_ to let the memory of Grandidierite's behavior affect her. It felt too much like letting her win one last time. "That wasn't _enough_ for her. She liked hurting other gems, and no one thinks twice about a used pearl being beaten. Our value decreases the older and more _used_ we are. And so long as she didn't touch my gem, I just… went along with it and let her do everything she wanted. Zircon gave her pearls to abuse and she slipped Zircon news that never made it to the feeds. You have _no_ idea how relieved I was when you turned out to be nothing like them."

All pretenses Peridot had towards restraining her fury were gone. They had long since stopped their dance and sunk to the bottom of the travertine pool. The water lapped around their knees and tugged at her skirt on its way downstream, and none of it seemed to matter.

"I'll shatter them," Peridot growled at last. "They'll never hurt you again."

"That's why I want to stay here with you. So I can forget." She brushed away the yellow-green hair around her lover's face and cupped her cheek. The fury seemed to drain with each caress, for both of them. She could feel herself winding down, and she was sure half of that was because Peridot was so willing to let her say everything she needed to. "So we can have a new life together. If you want that, too."

Peridot took in several deep breaths before she continued with all the calm she had before Mist had surprised her with her life story. The arms around her tightened, holding her close. "More than anything, but it's never going to be that simple."

"I know." She cuddled into Peridot's arms, feeling safer than ever now that she knew how Peridot felt about her past. Cuddling had always calmed all those little self-doubt she was never able to get rid of entirely. She felt lighter, too, in a way she hadn't felt since Trapiche Emerald's first prank. Despite Peridot's caution and preference for avoiding strife, she had more faith in Peridot than she'd ever had in any gem before. Maybe Peridot wasn't scary like a quartz warrior, but she was bright and clever and would surely be able to outwit anyone who crossed her.

Still, for all of Mist's faith in Peridot and what they had, she knew so little about her. Peridot just never talked much about herself. With a hopeful lilt in her voice, she nudged Peridot's side. Just a few hundred years ago, she never would have dared assume such familiarity. "I told you my story, you have to tell me yours."

Peridot's hand settled on her back to stroke it reassuringly. "There's not much to say. I've had a long life and it's not very interesting."

"I'm still interested." She raised her face to brush a little kiss on Peridot's cheek before pulling away just enough to start tugging Peridot towards the shore. "We should get comfortable, then you can tell me all about it."

Peridot sighed, but at least she didn't protest. Maybe finally getting Peridot to open up would answer all the questions she she was too shy to ask.

.*.

How does one condense seventy-five thousand years into a few sentences? How does one do it while still providing the eons of context that shaped those seventy-five thousand years? Does one provide a list, a _dramatis personae_ , before beginning? And what of the personal histories that shaped those gems? What of the ebb and flow of politics? Mist's method of defining her life by the gems who owned her couldn't apply to Peridot's life, the difference in scope was too great. Peridot didn't have appalling stories of abuse to recount, nor did she have the capacity to tell of her life like an outsider looking in. The processes that shaped her were as grains of sand in the beach on which they sat. Or, rather, a slab of sandstone used to polish inert gems. A grindstone.

"Don't know where to start?"

Mist's voice was soft, with an undercurrent of concern that was hard to miss. How she was able to still care about anyone after so much abuse, Peridot had no idea. She leaned against the pillow protecting her gem from the sandstone outcrop that supported her back; Mist had pulled it out of her gem with a few words about one of the rebel pearls who had run off with all of her mistress' possessions and how eager that pearl was to distribute those belongings to other pearls. Peridot found that she wasn't nearly as sympathetic towards the unnamed mistress as she might once have been.

"At the start, I suppose..?" Peridot said uncertainly, and felt a bit better when Mist smiled and snuggled in close. She cleared her throat, trying to get her thoughts and memories into a proper, logical order. Chronology seemed to be the best way to go.

"I was made on Blue Diamond's first colony," she began slowly, "during phase two of Kindergarten F, by Peridot Facet-2W3 Cut-4DF. She was one of White Diamond's, loaned to Blue Diamond until she had enough certified Kindergarteners to manage on her own. I was defective, as far as most peridots go. There had been inclusions of ilmenite in the strata above me that had been too small for the survey technology of that time to detect. The titanium in them precipitated into my gem, resulting in impurities. They're not visible on the exposed surface of my gem, but I'm told there are blue inclusions on the underside.

"You've seen my tools. Some of them were meant for albites, others I made to compensate for my inability to fine-tune or maintain my shapeshifting for longer than a few seconds."

She almost didn't remember the frustration of failing to grasp theoretical concepts others of her cut had no problem with, or the hours spent trying to train herself to focus everything she had into maintaining the shapeshifting of such basic tool forms as wrenches and screwdrivers. It had been an entire lifetime since White Diamond's Kindergartener took pity on her for the impurity-borne defects and gave her an albite's set of tools.

Mist, curled up at her side with her cheek resting on Peridot's shoulder, glanced up to her face. It was a searching look. "You didn't have a problem when we fused, or when I got you to drink something."

"No, I think those are semi-autonomous functions. Usable tool shapeshifting requires a level of self-control and awareness I don't have." Mist made a tiny noise of disbelief, to which Peridot had to suppress a smirk. Some forms of self-control came easier than others to her, and shapeshifting with the finesse a peridot needed just wasn't one of those forms. "Whether it's because of the titanium impurities is irrelevant. Peridot 4DF took me in, gave me a set of albite's tools, and helped me learn to compensate for the lack. Around that time, things were changing on Homeworld. I suppose they always had been, but Pink Diamond emerged not long after I did, and seemed to mark an acceleration in the process. Like Blue and Yellow Diamond before her, she was made to help rule the expanding empire."

Peridot had to pause to get her thoughts back into order. Pink Diamond had spent nearly the entirety of Peridot's life learning to lead, only to be shattered on her first and only colony for reasons Peridot still didn't fully understand. Pink Diamond had only been three hundred years younger than her. She still felt the pang of loss even now, years after her death.

"I suppose I wasn't really aware of things on Homeworld progressing the way they did. I mostly stayed in my colony or by Peridot 4DF's side. There were little things going on—changes in what was shown on the news and entertainment feeds, an increase in opinion pieces being depicted as legitimately as real news. Little things like romantic fiction were dismissed as mindless fluff or disparaged outright, and in time they got phased out. The sense I got was that if you were a real gem, you took pride in your assigned place and reserved your positive emotions for the Diamonds. Anything else was useless."

"But all those data crystals you have back in your apartment…" Mist trailed off and blushed as she realized that she said more than she had meant to admit. Peridot was just glad that Mist had taken the liberty to do what she wanted and go through her things even back when their relationship had been very different; it meant that she felt comfortable enough to test her boundaries.

"A collection I started when I was tasked with, well…" Peridot paused to consider how best to explain that collection. She almost didn't want to, because the explanation involved other gems. But, it wasn't likely that any of them were around anymore to disagree with being talked about. "About six thousand years after my emergence, I was entrusted with overseeing the replacement of Peridot 4DF's shuttle. Its construction was led by a senior albite, Albite Facet-2W6 Cut-1SJ, who had been building ships for nearly four hundred thousand years at that point. She was efficient to the point of ruthlessness, patriotic to the point of mania, and she had this… _way_ about her that was… _magnetic_."

 _Stars_ , she could still remember Albite in all her glory, down to her strident tones and the dust and grease she wore like a badge of honor. Peridot had been drawn to her like a wandering planet to a new star, aware only of the light and warmth until she got close enough for it to burn.

"Albite claimed that White Diamond was embarking on a misinformation campaign in the effort to overwrite history with propaganda. In doing so, White Diamond was betraying gemkind itself. It was all very thrilling, and Albite was too much like a black hole. Once you got close, it was impossible to escape her gravity. You couldn't resent her for it because she made you feel like you belonged. If you didn't believe you were better than your role in society and that gemkind would be better off without stratification, you did by the time she finished building you up."

Her first encounter with Albite's after-hours speeches had been almost terrifying, but she was never able to look away. For all that albites were half the size of most quartzes, Albite was able to command attention like an agate without needing to terrorize anyone. Albite's presence alone could take up a room. It was used to deliver her message with great efficiency, and Albite's followers grew in number until they became too many to ignore.

"She sounds like Bismuth," Mist said. But for the subtle hint of fondness, her voice was almost neutral.

"Maybe. I don't think I know your friends. Bismuths and peridots don't usually socialize, and I learned my place long ago." Peridot paused to consider her statement. It was unlikely that she would know any of the rebels. Not now, millennia after she learned the value of compliance and kept her head down. "Albite's displays of affection towards those she liked were few, fettered by obstinate morality and ideals of virtue that even she couldn't entirely live up to. I got drawn into helping her rebellion with repairs, with the stipulation that it had to be safe enough for me to work. She denounced my caution and called me a coward. But even then my cowardice was useful. If I couldn't contribute more than a few untraceable repairs, I could collect and hide information.

"And, as her speeches became full-fledged rebellion, I was refused any information pertaining to their plans. I ended up sitting next to a pearl she had stolen, waiting for whenever she was free to give orders or hand me another data crystal for the collection." Her memory of that particular time was a blur of boredom and _waiting_ , but she remembered the lavender pearl clearly. Moreover, she remembered trying to talk to the pearl and feeling so embarrassed with herself that her words ran together and tripped over her tongue in the attempt to forge some kind of connection with a type of gem she'd never encountered personally before. "The pearl never spoke, moved, or did anything. I didn't mind it so much. It was nice just to have company."

A quick smile appeared on Mist's face, and the arm that rested across Peridot's midriff squeezed in a brief hug. "I'm sure that pearl liked you, too. You're always so sweet to me."

"Well, I did make her those toys you like. I don't think she could respond, even if I wanted her to. Every time I gave her a toy, it sat in her hands until I had to leave and it was gone when I returned."

They had been simple mechanisms. Springs and wires under wings of graphene supported by gold-filigreed carapaces and woven carbon nanotube frames, with only the bare minimum of circuitry and programming to enable it to fly short distances and return to the owner. They were modeled after extinct animals from colonized worlds, and she had always been so careful when she set each of them in the pearl's hands. She remembered being disappointed by the lack of response, but each time she said the same thing: _I made this for you; I hope you like it_.

Mist's smile softened with fondness, and Peridot suspected she would never shed those ideals Mist had of her now. "She probably stored them in her gem. It's what I would have done."

"Perhaps. It didn't matter in the end. Albite disliked having a pearl around and I never saw her again once Albite decided to send her away."

' _Disliked_ ' may have been an understatement. Peridot had argued to keep the pearl in the relative safety of the abandoned workshop in which Albite held court with her revolutionaries, and her response had been a cold, biting " _If you want it, **you** keep it_."

And what could Peridot have done back then? She had no means and nowhere to keep a pearl. Her cubby was out of the question, exposed as it was to other gems, and she thought it was unnecessarily harsh to keep a pearl dissipated and wedged in her toolbox. Where would the pearl go, if left to her own devices? Was the pearl even capable of acting on her own anymore? And if the pearl's catatonia wasn't just an affectation, wouldn't it have been worse to just abandon her somewhere?

"By then, she had decided that pearls weren't true gems and wanted nothing to do with them." Another understatement. One of Albite's last impassioned speeches was about the inherent cruelty of the development of pearls, that their purpose and the way they were made meant that they could not exist in a just society. No just society would see a gem shattered.

Mist's smile faded, probably in reaction to Albite's antipathy towards pearls. Or, perhaps, it was antipathy towards a society that necessitated the production of pearls that had gotten interwoven with how she acted towards that one pearl. Albite's patience with others waned the further along her revolution proceeded, at least until she was shattered.

"What happened to her?" Mist asked. "Albite?"

"Irony happened. An infiltrator sabotaged her rebellion and exposed her work to White Diamond. I fled back to Peridot 4DF's side on another colony the moment I got wind of things going wrong and only saw the trial through the news feeds."

Albite may have detested her caution, but Peridot's wariness had saved her own life. Once she got wind of shock troops of quartzes being sent in from Homeworld, Peridot had taken her illicit data crystals, shoved them into the false-bottom chamber of her toolbox, and fled on the nearest warp pad an hour before the colony was disconnected from the network. Every time she felt guilty for not staying, she reminded herself that it served no purpose to get captured and killed while she had the data crystals with her.

"It was a big production, and all very scandalous for the fact that Albite refused to kneel and repent. Something about shattering being preferable to slavery. She even managed to spit in White Diamond's face, which was something that became legend for the next few thousand years. The Diamonds seldom intrude on each other's decisions, but Blue Diamond suggested that Albite's shards be used to seed pearls. Blue Diamond was praised for her generosity and mercy in devising a way to negate Albite's ideals and make her a _productive_ member of society. Seven pearls, in fact. I think they're still in White Diamond's court."

Mist's arm tightened around her midriff in a quick hug. "That's horrible. Do you think they have any idea? Of who they were?"

"Probably not. Do you?" Peridot had to admit that she was curious. Any research on the topic of gem shards and whether or not any traits survived in the pearls they seeded was meager at best, as if no one _wanted_ to consider the ramifications of pearl development. Of course, in order to consider such ramifications, one must admit that pearls were gems with thoughts and feelings.

"No, but I've been wondering ever since I found out how we're made." Mist paused and looked up to meet her eyes. There was some concern there, but it seemed focused more on Peridot than any theoretical past life. "Does it matter?"

Peridot leaned in to kiss her forehead, her fingers interlacing with Mist's over her midriff and giving them a light squeeze. "Not to me. You're _you_ now, not whoever you might have been before."

Mist might as well have been glowing from happiness, her grin was so wide. The arm around Mist's slight shoulders squeezed briefly. Peridot would be content with just leaving the story there, but it wasn't to be. She had only been a few thousand years old when Albite was shattered, and there was so much history afterwards that the prospect of _talking_ about it grew more unpleasant with each passing second.

"So," Mist began gently, as if she could feel Peridot's dampening mood, "what happened next?"

"Hm." Peridot paused for a moment to consider how best to proceed. Mist didn't need to know about the centuries of self-doubt about her capabilities as a technician, or the anxiety over being discovered for her role in Albite's rebellion. She didn't need to know about the frustrated sounds higher-ranking gems made when Peridot brought her toolbox with her to a repair job, or the way they complained to her supervisor if she took too long at her job, or the disapproving looks if her toolbox took up too much space, or the sneers she got when she built her greaves to act as a materials source for temporarily-shaped tools when she couldn't take her toolbox with her, or the voicing of any number of petty issues that ultimately didn't matter.

"There wasn't much that went on between Albite's fall and my decision to pursue a Kindergartener certification. My impurities made progressing along the technician tract increasingly unlikely, so I thought that I would do better by pursuing the Kindergartener tract. Somewhere in my twenty-fifth millennia, I was apprenticed to the peridot who created me, Peridot 4DF. With her I learned of the Great Maker and her Mark, and how gemkind came to be. I never told her about the collection of data crystals, but I think she suspected something. Or perhaps she saw something in me that everyone investigating Albite's contacts overlooked. Regardless, my training continued apace and I got my certification when Prasiolite emerged."

Before Peridot could continue, Mist straightened and there was that flash of long-fermenting curiosity in her eyes that suggested that she had been wanting to ask something for too long a time. "What's it like? When the first gem you make comes out?"

"It's… indescribable. Everything you worked for—all the training and planning—comes together to form this living, thinking gem with a personality all her own. There's pride in a job well done, of course, but there's something else that's not well-defined." For the life of her, she still had no words for the wellspring of emotions that popped up every time the gems she made started emerging. It wasn't something discussed outside of Kindergartener circles, and among Kindergarteners there was that unspoken understanding that all of them felt it. Still, she had to try. "That comes when you realize that you've responsible for creating this whole other being, and all you want is for them to succeed and be happy. It can be overwhelming at first, which is why prospective Kindergarteners are usually only allowed to create one gem for their practical test."

"You let me inject nearly this entire Kindergarten," Mist reminded her, long fingers squeezing hers lightly. "That's… eighty-six gems, excluding your examples for the mixture ratios of each gem type."

Peridot gave a dry chuckle; she hadn't 'let' her do anything. She had simply suggested that Mist take over if she so desired and stood aside unless Mist needed help. "You're stronger than most apprentices. I'm sure you can handle it."

For that little bit of faith, she was rewarded with the brush of a kiss on her cheek. "So, tell me about Prasiolite."

She missed Prasiolite, whose druse-rough cackle and form-endangering hugs were unlike those of any other gem. She missed how Prasiolite sometimes got carried away and giggled midway through trying to tell a joke, how she would cuff Peridot's shoulder a little too hard sometimes and stumble over the apologies, how she followed Peridot around even after receiving her assignments and hung onto every word, and the way her brow furled when she was determined to do something. Despite Albite's implacable self-righteousness in her final years and her growing impatience with Peridot's diffidence, Peridot had been fond of her. But Prasiolite… Prasiolite she had loved. Not the way she loved Mist, but in a _different_ way, one that gems had no words for.

"There's not a lot to tell. She only lived a few hundred years. She had the attitude of an amethyst half the time, with just enough wits about her to know when to hold her tongue. If she liked you, she was physical with you. There was no getting around that. She was so eager to prove herself when she wasn't trying to brighten a room. Her gem cracked during an arena battle with a blue topaz and she insisted on sticking to the fight until one good hit shattered her."

Thousands of years later, the loss still stung. Peridot remembered excusing herself from her companion's side to find a quiet corner to cry in after she managed to shake herself out of the shock of watching her first gem she made be shattered right in front of her. The peridot who joined her for the event, barely emerged thirty years earlier at that point and made for Yellow Diamond, had teased her for being too soft. Her mentor understood and told her that the possibility of loss was the cost of creating new gems. Just another unspoken rite of passage.

She sighed and tried to expel with her breath the little bit of grief that turned up every time she thought of Prasiolite. Even that wasn't enough to prevent the tell-tale pricking of tears beginning to form in her eyes.

"As a Kindergartener, you're not really supposed to have favorites. You're not supposed to keep track of any of the gems you make, either. With Prasiolite I disregarded both of those conventions."

"Oh, darling. I'm so sorry." Mist pulled her fingers from Peridot's to brush away the tears. "Do you want to stop?"

"No. It's fine. I just…" Peridot scrubbed viciously at her eyes. They ached from the abuse by the time she was done, but it distracted her enough to continue. But could she? What came next would only hurt more.

As she tried to will away the soreness growing in her throat and her hands began wringing with distress, Peridot reconsidered her readiness for this. In the past, every little hurt was spaced out by years and buried in work. She thought she had mastered the art of glossing over her losses and moving on, but it seemed that digging it all up again only magnified the pain. Why? And why did the urge to _get away_ only increase with each memory she unearthed? Perhaps she needed a break, after all. Just long enough to ground herself again.

Stars, she felt brittle enough to flake.

"Sorry," she amended. The way her voice cracked made her grimace. "Maybe I do. For a bit."

"You don't have to apologize for anything," Mist said as her hand settled over Peridot's. It stopped her from wringing them to the point of pain, but it did little for the feelings fueling the action. "What do you need?"

"Just… I need to think." Toy-making had always calmed her, after all. Maybe it would help. Her lips tugged into a thin, wan smile. "Do you mind?"

"No, of course not." Mist leaned in to press a brief kiss to her cheek, and her fingers squeezed lightly around Peridot's hands. "I'll keep myself entertained. You'll let me know if you need me?"

Peridot's response was a silent nod, and she was given another kiss before Mist got up and left her to her own devices. She watched her lover depart with a guilty sense of relief mixed in with the ever-growing adoration. But there was no time for that. Mist deserved to know why she distrusted rebellions. Peridot had to _process_ in order to continue.

As she had done innumerable times before, Peridot turned to her toys. Building them was calming and it allowed her to experiment without worry that dabbling in creativity might render her toys useless. She returned to her work bench to proceed with her little dexterity exercise.

A light chassis. Parts for a flight and hovering mechanism. A pre-programmed chip that served as a rudimentary computer. A vial of perfluoroalkane fluid to maintain the toy's internal stability. A mold kit and raw materials for any decorative elements. A few sheets of graphene modified to show a degree of iridescence. And so on.

She felt better, steadier, as she put together the flight mechanism and adjusted it to mimic the flight pattern of those tiny, hovering birds native to parts of this world. As she wired the battery to the power distribution unit, she allowed herself to skim over those memories she had yet to share with Mist. Talking about them would hurt, but it would always hurt. Maybe it was better to unearth it all and acknowledge it, rather than bury it and pretend nothing happened.

In the past there had never really been anyone _to_ talk to. Not the way she talked to Mist. Albite was too caught up in her revolution to pay much attention to individual problems. Prasiolite looked up to her so much and was so inexperienced that she didn't feel comfortable with burdening the young quartz with her problems. Her mentor had shrugged off any concerns and said that this was the way things were, and that nothing was likely to change. Peridot never quite had faith in anyone else, for she had seen other gems go missing because their lips had been a little too loose around someone they shouldn't have trusted. Her wariness served her well over the years, but the repression of her thoughts and feelings was only failing her now.

When she finally finished the mechanical bird several hours later, she fluffed out the shiny, scallop-edged pseudo-feathers and sent it on a test flight. Its wings blurred with the speed of its flapping, and it was a barely perceptible flicker of emerald green and amethyst violet in the diminishing sunlight as it darted off in search of Mist. It didn't have to go far. Mist left the shuttle a few minutes later with the toy flying in lazy circles around the crown of her head.

"Does it stop?" Mist asked once she returned to the makeshift workbench, her voice sounding as if she wasn't sure whether to be irked or amused by the toy's antics.

Despite the prior subject matter that dampened her mood, Peridot managed a small smile. "Please hold out your hand."

Silently Mist held out a slim hand, palm up. The tiny mechanical bird alighted within it and folded its wings against its sides. With its task completed, it went into idle mode. Mist took its quiescence as opportunity to examine it more closely.

"Oh! It's a _hummingbird_! What does it do?"

"Just flight to target, hover, return, and idle." Peridot couldn't help feeling a little proud, and maybe the pride might have betrayed itself in the tone of her voice. "It's a very simple toy."

Mist paused in the act of stroking the toy's tiny back with a finger, and she looked up at Peridot with a touch of concern. "Do you think, well… Is there a chance…?"

"It has no artificial intelligence or learning capacity," Peridot began, gently. "Those would require much more sophisticated programming and hardware, and I've never been inclined to include such things in my toys." They were always meant to be destroyed as soon as she was done making them, after all. Building an artificial intelligence seemed so unnecessary in light of that, and building that for a toy meant for a gem treated as a toy herself would have been callous.

The smile Mist flashed her was dazzling, and Peridot thought she might flake for an entirely different reason. Mist offered her the bird. "Good. Well, here—"

"Oh, no. It's yours." Peridot reconsidered her presumption the moment the words tumbled out of her mouth. Her tone was apologetic when she followed up with; "You did want one, right?"

"Yes! Of course!" Mist brightened with delight. Her hands folded protectively over the mechanical bird as she held it close to her chest. "It's prettier than your usual."

Mist's mood was infectious and Peridot could hardly help smiling back. "A pretty toy for a beautiful mind."

"Peridot!" Her lover gasped. Peridot wondered for a brief, frantic moment whether she had gone too far, but nothing about the sparkle in her eyes looked upset. "Are you flirting with me?" The smile widened into a grin as Mist bounced excitedly on the balls of her feet. "Please, continue."

Faced with such eager anticipation, Peridot floundered to come up with something that didn't sound too trite or inappropriate. Flirting wasn't something she was used to; beryls who got their thrills from playing with lower-class gems like her used gifts and their status to get what they wanted, most quartzes had no skill in subtlety, and the pyrites who were good at that kind of thing never bothered with her because she was too scrupulous to be of any interest to those who might be so inclined. Still, she had to try.

"For the brightest gem I've ever known, there will never be words enough to accurately convey my appreciation." It sounded a little too stilted and formal. Peridot had never been good at sounding natural. Whatever that meant.

"'Brightest'? Really?" Mist's grin softened to that slight, fond smile of hers. She edged a little closer as she stored the mechanical bird in her gem. With it safely out of the way, she started toying with her hair instead. "Are you sure?"

Maybe Peridot might not be as bad at this as she suspected. Then Mist started nibbling on her bottom lip and Peridot found it difficult to concentrate on anything. The urge to kiss her was too strong. She allowed herself a split second to gather herself before responding.

"Certainly. Not even the stars can compare to you."

" _Oh!_ "

It was that quiet, delighted little sound Mist made when she couldn't articulate a spoken response. Mist closed what little distance remained between them and rewarded her with a kiss. One kiss became two, four, and so on until the sun was so low on the horizon far beyond the walls of the canyon that the stars were visible. When they finally parted, Mist gave her a final peck on the cheek.

"You're feeling better?"

"It's hard to be dour with such a snuggly companion in my arms." That might have been the most inane attempt at flirting yet, but Mist had always had a positive effect on her moods. Peridot appreciated it more than she could say.

Mist giggled lightly in response; it seemed that her inanity wasn't as off-putting as she thought it might be. "You're just spoiling me now."

"You deserve to be spoiled," Peridot began. It could have been a springboard to other things, but she might lose her nerve if this distraction went on any longer. "But, if you like, I'm ready to continue. My, I suppose, ‘story'."

"Are you sure?" Mist's voice was soft and concerned, and a hand slipped from behind her shoulder to brush away the stray hairs around her face. "We don't have to."

Though she managed a slight smile, it felt a little too wan to be reassuring. "Might as well get it over with."

Mist pulled out of the embrace to lead her back to the nest they made next to a sandstone outcrop. With more of the night sky available than there was at the Beta Kindergarten, it was easier to see where they were going. Peridot lay back on the sheet; she could view the stars that way. Homeworld's galaxy was a faint smudge in the northeastern quadrant of the sky, just east of this galaxy's arms of dust and gas. Mist settled into her side and laid her head on her shoulder.

At times Peridot wondered whether Mist was dependent on her. The selfish side of Peridot wouldn't mind dependency, but a tiny part of her worried away at the idea that maybe _this_ wasn't _right_ , that maybe she was somehow abusing Mist's apparent need for physical contact that surely came of never having experienced a kind touch before. Yet, it was clear that Mist actively sought out and initiated these things. Would Peridot be overstepping her bounds by bringing it up? Or should she mention it at all?

She returned to the slightly less confusing task of stripping bare her past, instead.

"There was unrest a few hundred years after Prasiolite was shattered. Again. It starts up ever so often and always ends the same way." Her voice cracked sooner than she had expected, though whether it was over the frustration of how useless the rebellions were or the strain of remembering everything, she couldn't tell. "Peridot 4DF had been grooming me to replace her by the time she got involved with it. I don't think she expected to come back alive. She showed me the way to the oldest gem colony and how to disappear if I needed to. She taught me how to be indispensable, how to use information as a weapon and how to bide my time. Through her I met a star sapphire."

"Your friend in Blue Diamond's court?"

Peridot had seen Star Sapphire Facet-3F2 Cut-6SN at least five times while accompanied by Mist and had maintained contact during this round of futile rebellious gestures; she supposed it was unsurprising that Mist remembered her.

Star sapphires, while rare, were not as valued as Blue Diamond's high-clarity sapphires. The one Peridot knew could only see another's future if she was in physical contact with them, and that was limited to probabilities rather than any true certainties. Yet all sapphires received an education beyond anything most other gems might gain, because any visions of the future were useless without context. Star Sapphire 6SN was an invaluable ally for that alone, and she liked Peridot enough to introduce her to the court.

If Peridot closed her eyes, she could still feel the sapphire's cold hands on her cheeks and picture the skin around the single eye crinkled in amusement. _"You are not your mentor. You would never use my information the way she would use it. Blackmail does not become you._ " Then she gave that tinkling laugh that Peridot wasn't sure was at her expense. _"But you are adorably principled and I will tell you all you want to know._ " Much of their relationship afterwards was just as perplexing, and Peridot didn't have enough experience with sapphires to know whether that was normal. "I don't know if 'friend' is the right word, but Star Sapphire was helpful when she wanted to be."

Mist gave that noncommittal hum of hers; she had never liked Star Sapphire, and Peridot wasn't quite sure why. Frankly, it could have been because of any one of Star Sapphire's bad habits, the way she talked to her pearl, the blasé and often nihilistic attitude that came of hundreds of thousands of years of existence coupled with clairvoyance… the list was long and Peridot suspected that Mist disliked a little bit of everything when it came to her. "Why was getting to know her necessary?"

"Most gems can't grow beyond what they were made for, but knowledge is power. Knowing upper crust gems and gaining their favor is power. When…" Peridot had to pause again. Remembering her mentor in her last days and how she had missed all the signs was familiar territory, and she had self-recriminations aplenty every time the subject came up. Still, it hurt. "When Peridot 4DF set me up as her successor, a network of well-placed gems was just part of what she left to me. Star Sapphire was a critical part of that network."

"Oh." Mist cuddled closer, as if answering her subconscious need for comfort. "Is she gone? 4DF? You talk like she is."

Peridot's eyes fixed on the smudge in the sky that was Homeworld's galaxy to ground herself. She squeezed Mist's shoulder briefly in thanks. "The rebellion she was in ended as they all did, with sabotage and public executions. The Diamonds did something different that time around, but I was not a participant and didn't know the extent of it. The surviving rebels were paraded out for the telecasts and… There was something off about them. Peridot 4DF was originally more yellow than green, but she was an emerald green when she appeared on screen. The surface of her gem looked flaky and waxed over, like it was exposed to intense radiation and patched up. There was an amethyst with her, irradiated into a mock-prasiolite and strong enough to look more stable. With a good connection, you could see the little lines in her gem. Among other survivors."

She remembered that she had been wringing her hands by that point. Torn between a deep-set anxiety over someone reporting her after what was surely torture and dread for her mentor, she could do nothing but watch. "They confessed to rebelling because of their discontent with their roles, gave names of other rebels, and were pardoned by the Diamonds."

"That's not all, is it?"

"No." Peridot swallowed around the lump forming in her throat. Mist's arm around her midriff squeezed reassuringly. It helped, a little. "Every one of them disappeared shortly afterwards. I… acted too hastily trying to find my mentor again. In my recklessness, I drew the attention of the tanzanites and was interrogated."

How could she put into words how terrifying it was to be dragged off her path and into an interrogation room where a set of radiation bombardment armamentaria awaited an unyielding gem? She had been strapped down and questioned about her activities and allegiances, and each time she repeated her half-truths and all the little lies she told herself until she believed them just as much as the tanzanites did. For too many years afterwards, she tamped down any stray thoughts and feelings that went against the status quo, afraid that simply touching upon them would garner the tanzanites' attention again. It took several thousand years for her to stop trying to jump out of her skin whenever there were any sudden motions out of the corner of her eye. In the interest of self-preservation, she avoided being alone whenever possible.

"It was long and unpleasant, but they released me once they were convinced that I had been uninvolved in that particular rebellion. They didn't ask the right questions."

The long, lean hand on her midriff reached for hers, and their fingers intertwined. Mist looked like she wanted to say something, but she remained silent and squeezed their fingers together reassuringly. Peridot remained still, relaxing in the silence between them and the constant background noise of the waterfall. It was easier to deal with her memories with Mist there to ground her. When the silence stretched without comment, Peridot continued.

"Forty-six thousand years passed without much incident. There were other rebellions, of course. Little flashes of effort that were ultimately futile. I lost more gems to battles and petty skirmishes, and after a while I stopped counting. After the interrogation, I did what was expected of me and excelled in my post. Other than collecting old data crystals when I knew it was safe, I did nothing to draw that kind of attention again." She had attended to professional meetings and social outings with fellow peridots, did everything a proper gem was supposed to do, and it had become a dull, numbed existence. At least she was alive, and simply doing what was expected of her got her this far. "When I did draw attention again, it was to reward me for being properly compliant. Blue Diamond needed to make an example before discontent spread again, and I was a good little pawn by then. It was politically astute. I got an apartment rather than the cubby I'd been used to for thousands of years, and you. You know the rest."

Silence fell, again. Mist's thumb stroked hers absently, almost lazily, until she finally found the words.

"Thank you for telling me, darling." Mist's voice had that soft, fond quality in it that suggested that Peridot could do no wrong in her eyes. It was the kind of thing that made Peridot want to be better than she was just to properly deserve it. "You're very brave."

Peridot wanted to protest, remembering Albite's castigation and how quickly she would have given in to the tanzanites if they'd just asked the right questions, but it didn't feel like the right time. In the pause that followed, Mist shifted what little weight she had onto her elbow to gaze down at her with that fondness that Peridot certainly did not deserve.

"For what it's worth," she said, "I'm just glad we're together now."

With that, Mist leaned down to kiss her again. She dismissed her self-doubts for later. Out here, the moment was all that mattered.

.*.

It was fall when Mist visited the Crystal Gems again, and this time she came with a replica of an instrument that hadn't been used in hundreds of thousands of years. Peridot agreed to help her build it, and her artistry softened the otherwise harsh lines of the harp with elegant silver loops and spirals punctuated by little gold studs meant to evoke the image of Homeworld's solar system and all the planets and notable comets in it moving through the galaxy. She was a nervous wreck as her feet crunched through the piles of dead, fallen leaves, but none of that had to do with concerns over whether she would be followed.

Peridot's personal, life-long rebellion was retaining evidence of the past, of the time before the Diamonds and obedience to their ideals became all that mattered. Not that Peridot would ever see it that way; to her it was a duty she was honor-bound to maintain long past Albite's demise. In her data crystals were records of poetry, art, and songs that had no greater meaning than the little celebrations of a way of life that had fallen out of favor. One way or another, they championed ideas that were no longer acceptable. Keeping such things would be dangerous if Peridot was ever discovered, and the likelihood of losing those records forever was too high to risk keeping them secret.

Fighting was no more for her than it was for Peridot; they were both ground down to timorous shadows of what they could have been. But this, this she could do.

Snowflake Obsidian leaned against a tree in wait for her. Its nearly-bare branches were like spindly arms reaching out to the dull, overcast sky, and the few leaves that remained looked to be out of place. The air was sharp with the threat of frost and tinged with the moldering scent of dead and dying vegetation and the distant, acrid remains of human campfires. Upon noticing her, Snowflake straightened and flashed her that grin that wrinkled that fleck of white on her cheek. "Welcome back! Anything new?"

"Not on the Homeworld front. There's been a communications blackout. Our contact will probably get something to us soon. She has her ways." Mist relaxed, a little. Snowflake, like Garnet, never pressured her for anything and was content to wait until she felt comfortable enough to talk. The thought of sharing this with all of the Crystal Gems as an audience made her nervous, but maybe she could start with Snowflake. "Might I show you something? It won't take long."

"Sure. There's always time for friends." Snowflake sat at the base of the tree and watched her expectantly.

Try as she might, she couldn't quite still her nervousness. She knelt before Snowflake amidst musty, dead leaves. It was a fitting stage, in a way. She unfolded the harp, separating the pillar from the soundbox and allowing segments that formed the harmonic curve to settle and lock into place. The touch of a button brought the light strings to life, and a quick pass of her gem over the scanner allowed the harp to better read her intentions and help her feel the projected strings. To make sure it was working, she ran her thumb down the now-tangible strings in an ethereal glissando. It performed entirely as expected.

"This is an old song, from the discovery and founding of Homeworld. It's from before there were defined roles, before heterogenous fusion was forbidden. It was a time when everything was new to gems, when life itself was something to be celebrated. My darling says the last record was from seven hundred thousand years ago, after which it disappeared from history."

With that out of the way, her fingers settled into place. A deep breath, and another, and she began singing of the joy of knowing their place in the universe. Of being the universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out with each incarnation. Of knowing that stars lived and died to create the elements that made them, and to the stars they'll eventually return. She sang of the discovery of the perfect world, of the beauty of plantlife that had long since gone extinct. She sang of the first union between gems. By the time she was done, Garnet and Bismuth had joined them.

Fighting was not for her, but that was fine. She would share the memories and thoughts of gems long past and forgotten, instead. Someone had to keep their history alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * The place mentioned here is [Havasu Falls](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havasu_Falls), on the southwestern side of the Grand Canyon.
> 
> * Peridot 2AA was always meant to be included (on the diamond clarity scale, she would register under SI2: visible inclusions, but they would only be noticeable under close inspection). On the colored character design I have for her, she displays more blue than normal peridots due to those inclusions. So, technically she's always been an off-color, we just didn't have a term for it when I started writing this fic series. I have dropped hints, though: she did poorly on the quantum theory part of her Kindergartener exam because she sucks at theory (thus why she never taught it to Mist), she uses tools that other peridots wouldn't have to use because she's not very good at shapeshifting.
> 
> * Peridots are chemically unstable in Earth's atmosphere. Their molecular structure and atomic bonds allows for inclusion of other elements, which makes them very prone to weathering. Peridot 4DF, therefore, flakes easily under intense radiation bombardment and torture, and needed wax treatment to maintain her form. The wax treatment is a nod to impregnation, a real world process in which the gem's cracks and crevices are filled with a colorless compound. Usually this is wax, oil, or resin.
> 
> * A combination of radiation and heat treatment is how artificial prasiolites are made from amethysts; natural prasiolites are rare. The same or similar treatments are also how we deepen the color of natural gems. Fun fact! Artificial citrines and smoky quartzes are also made from heat-treated amethysts. You can usually tell artificial prasiolites, citrines, and smoky quartzes from the real things by the clarity, depth of color, and the presence of lines in the crystal. The natural forms of these gems are usually cloudy and not as bright or deeply saturated as the artificial versions, and artificial citrines can have lines in their crystals that are a huge tell.
> 
> * Besides the effects of minor irradiation mentioned above, radiation fundamentally alters the atomic structure of gems. This is why mineral collectors keep their radioactive mineral samples in lead boxes or otherwise away from their non-radioactive samples. So, I thought the process of irradiation might not be pleasant to gems.
> 
> * The light harp is only loosely based on existing laser harps, and Mist's is a portable version of the concert light harp. It sounds like a theremin with an extended pitch range and is played like a harp.
> 
> * The mechanical hummingbird is based on Costa's hummingbird, which is an occasional visitor to the lower Grand Canyon.
> 
> * I've decided that the Triangulum Galaxy best fits all the clues we have of the location of Homeworld's galaxy: it's a summer sky galaxy visible to the northern hemisphere, it's just barely visible to the naked human eye, and it is relatively close.


	6. As We Mean to Go On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In all her seventy-two thousand years of life, Peridot Facet-1F2 Cut-2AA was used to being just _slightly_ off-color and unremarkable. Any thoughts towards rejecting the status quo of Homeworld were driven out of her long ago. She's a perfect example of a gem wise enough to know her place. For all her planning, she never could have been prepared to have a pearl thrown in her lap.

The courtroom was dark and illuminated only by the spotlights focusing on the accused. Just outside the focus of the spotlights were Pink, Yellow, and Blue Diamond, their pearls, the zircons whose only purpose was to present the appearance of a fair trial, and a blue topaz stood by to play security. It was a dreary place, but at least there was no real trial needed for such traitors. Pink Diamond preferred it that way; watching a full trial was one of her least favorite activities and she would much rather play with her pearl. Yellow hadn't even given her the option to keep her pearl in her lap for her to fidget with during the proceedings; her pearl was with Yellow's to learn its courtroom duties.

Pink wanted to slide off the throne, it was so uncomfortable. She refrained from drumming her nails on the armrest in boredom, certain that Yellow would shoot her _that look_ if she did. In no way had she indicated to her fellow Diamonds that she was interested in the minutiae of justice, but they insisted that she needed to learn her role.

The accused was a larimar, one of those entertainer gems that were growing increasingly obsolete. Aside from a particular level of performance skill that moonstones had yet to incorporate in pearls, their worth was little and they attempted to improve their circumstances by latching on to whichever higher-ranking gem they could catch. Larimar Facet-4B2 Cut-5A7 hadn't been a leader of the rebellion on Blue's fourth colony, no. She did something far worse: she used her patrons to gain access to sensitive data, relayed it to the rebels, and had managed to do far more damage to the galactic information network, galaxy warp network, and communications network than anyone had expected from what was supposed to be a meek little gem with no training in programming. The peridots were still repairing the aftermath of the massive systems crash and would likely be doing so for the next few hundred years.

The larimar stood with her head hung so that her blue-white curls could hide her face, and her right hand folded over the gem on the back of her left hand. The prosecution zircon repeated the charges and demanded her response, and the larimar's hands tightened. Finally she spoke, and her voice was so soft that it was difficult to make out what she was saying. "Doesn't matter. Break me as much as you want. I'll just come back and do it again."

Blue nodded at the zircon, who pronounced the sentence as; "Shattering, effective immediately." To the larimar's credit, she didn't gibber, cry, or beg for her life even as Blue towered over her. The only response she gave was a glare of such intense hatred that it might have withered the sun. She was shattered quickly and the topaz stepped forward to collect the shards.

"I'm glad that's over with," Pink said at last, once the zircons and topaz were gone. She stood and stretched, though she hadn't sat nearly long enough for her constructed body to complain.

Blue smiled indulgently at her. "One must still maintain the _appearance_ of fairness, even with such obvious cases."

"Everything we do serves a purpose," Yellow began. She dismissed the thrones and podiums, and stood in that straight-backed way that Pink usually couldn't be bothered to mimic. "The grandidierites will take the zircons' report on the trial and present it in such a way as to mollify the public."

"Surely it inspires imitators, too?" Pink paused to pick up her pearl. The other Diamonds might not be inclined to coddle their pearls like she did, but she could get away with it. "Honestly, I don't know why you allow the rebellions to go as far as they do."

Yellow regarded her with that subtle fondness that contrasted nicely against Blue's indulgence. "Rebellions also serve a purpose. They bring the discontent gems out of hiding, disrupt operations enough to turn public opinion against the rebels, and allow us to tighten any regulations and tie off the loose ends the rebels expose when they get too presumptuous. It is prudent to learn from them."

"If you insist." Pink grinned to take any sting out of her words. "I think the only good that ever came of them is the change in pearl development after that awful Albite fiasco. That was such a clever idea, Blue!"

Blue's smile softened, and her hand settled on Pink's back to guide her gently to the dedicated warp circle. "It was an elegant solution that would have come to any one of us in time. Yellow, will you be joining us for a private performance by Jeremejevite? She has a new symphony ready."

"Not this cycle." Yellow slipped so easily into her business mode that it was easy to miss the passing flicker of regret. Pink thought she was getting better at catching all those little hints of feelings behind Yellow's mask. "I have other matters to attend to."

With an exaggerated sigh, Pink linked her free arm with Blue's and pouted playfully at Yellow. The prospect of being far from this chamber was enticing. "Oh, very well. Join us when you _do_ have time to grace us with your presence again."

A hint of a smile tugged at a corner of Yellow's lips as she waved them off. Thankful to finally be out of here, away from the prospect of shattering and horrific thoughts of disembodied limbs flailing around in the attempt to find their other parts, Pink clung a little closer to Blue as they stepped onto the warp circle and were whisked away to more cheerful surroundings.

Thank the stars nothing like that would ever happen to her.

 .*.

Peridot had been fortunate to be apprenticed to one of White Diamond's oldest, most well-established Kindergarteners. In turn, she tried to ignore all the little signs suggesting that Peridot Facet-2W3 Cut-4DF was drifting away: the way Peridot 4DF focused on her during her training but blanked out when she was unoccupied, how troubled Peridot 4DF looked over some new edict from the Diamonds and the warning she gave her to look between the lines of what the grandidierites reported, how the bulk of the training was less about Kindergartening and more about learning the value of other kinds of information, how much value she put in developing connections with other gems and getting them to owe her favors. Before Peridot 4DF disappeared, the apprentice was fully groomed to take her place and was introduced to all of those contacts and hidden places no proper gem should know about. Star Sapphire was one of those contacts.

The first time Peridot Facet-1F2 Cut-2AA had been invited to Star Sapphire's quarters in the upper crust sectors of Homeworld, forty-six thousand years ago, she had been duly impressed by the sapphire's rank and excess. Perhaps a little awed. She was, after all, a slightly off-color colonial who compensated for her flaws well enough to avoid being harvested. The best most peridots could hope for was to do maintenance in these sectors.

Now that she was more experienced, she was well aware that star sapphires weren't as revered as the high-clarity ones, and that this part of the upper crust sectors was not as fancy as the better sectors. Though clean and well-maintained, this sector hosted evidence of hundreds of thousands of years of _wear_. The walls and edges of decorative elements were worn smooth, once-bright colors faded to pale hints against the base layers of material, and nearly imperceptible cracks at the feet of buildings could be seen if one stared at a patch of off-color paint wash long enough. Walkways were polished by millennia of use, resurfaced, polished again, and so on until observant gems looking down were able to see through the layers upon layers of walking surfaces worn and polished into thin sheets of glass that glittered when the light was just right.

Star Sapphire herself was as much a relic as her sector. At over eight hundred thousand years old, she was probably the oldest sapphire still sane and in touch with the real world. Perhaps the asterism in her gem kept her grounded when higher-clarity sapphires would have frozen over and gotten lost in their own worlds entirely. Perhaps she was simply too stubborn to get lost in her visions. Regardless, Star Sapphire was helpful when Peridot needed guidance on a decision. She was even pleasant company sometimes. That the number of older gems Peridot could connect with was slowly diminishing was beside the point.

Peridot arrived at last to the quarters and was let in by Star Sapphire's dark blue pearl. The pearl stood aside as she entered and didn't react to Peridot's greeting, or to her setting her toolbox at the crux between wall and floor. Peridot wondered at times if ignoring everyone but their owners was just a thing pearls _did_ , like the way quartzes suddenly straightened when someone addressing them pitched their voice just right. Not that it mattered, for Peridot certainly wasn't ranked high enough to encounter pearls often.

She strode through the short entrance corridor to the visiting room, where Star Sapphire sat on a couch with her preferred vice in hand. The deceptively plain metal box's lid was closed and locked, and Peridot relaxed upon noticing it sealed tight. Peridot had no idea when Star Sapphire started with her vice. She only knew that the extensive, self-induced exposure to low levels of ionizing radiation was slowly taking its toll on the sapphire. Once the sapphire might have been of a darker, richer hue. Now she was as pale as a blue-phase celestine and seemed to fade into the care-worn fabric of her sofa. Everything in and about the quarters was faded and worn, as if she had stepped into an obsidian's mural left to fade in the sun for a few thousand years.

"My apologies for arriving later than you requested," Peridot began with proper deportment. "The line at the Galaxy Warp was longer than usual."

Star Sapphire gave that mysterious smile of hers, the slight hint of one around the eye that suggested that she could see right into one's gem. "No matter. Please, sit. Has there been anything exciting going on with the colonial expedition?"

Though Peridot suspected that Star Sapphire knew just about everything regarding the potential new colony, she settled on the other end of the couch and proceeded. While Peridot had yet to visit, the hessonite in charge of the dropships was one she knew from another colonizing project. The preliminary surveys were just coming in, and she heard that they looked promising. It was the densest planet in its system, with a respectable iron core, signs of plate tectonics that provided favorable conditions for the cultivation of high-ranking gems, more than enough water for terraforming, and enough silica to produce entire armies of quartzes. The only problem, as far as she heard, might be the dominant species. They were unlikely to be a problem for long, for nothing survived colonization.

At some point during the telling, Star Sapphire handed her the heavy box that shielded her from the uranium within it. The small, cold hand brushed over hers in the process. It was a deliberate act; Star Sapphire needed physical contact for most of her visions. Peridot handled the box gingerly, once again thankful it was securely closed. Sharing it was a polite gesture, but Peridot knew what radiation could do to gems and valued her own too much to ever want to indulge in self-induced exposure.

"Blue Diamond has gifts for you," Star Sapphire said suddenly, and the subtle smile expanded into a toothy grin. It was disconcerting. "A pearl and somewhere to keep it."

The universe stopped. Or so it felt. Her hands tensed around the box as the words tumbled out of Peridot's mouth before she could think to restrain them. "But I don't want a pearl."

It wasn't because she resented them. If anything, she felt _sorry_ for them. They were only the fragments of gems made whole by biological processes, cursed to a life of service. Grotesque creatures built and polished into dolls for the elite. How much could a gem shard know or even understand, even with nacre layers filling in for their missing pieces? She still remembered that silent, unresponsive lavender pearl left to rot in Albite's warehouse and all the time she spent trying to talk to her. Peridot's current fling, Iolite, talked about wanting one with that unpleasant gleam in her eyes some gems got when they were too greedy. She would have to break things off with Iolite if she was going to have a pearl, just to protect the pearl. This would be a disaster.

Star Sapphire's voice was soft and amused. A small, uncharitable part of Peridot suspected that her reactions were why Star Sapphire liked to have her around. "You are in no position to reject Blue Diamond's magnanimity. Embrace the fact that you are a safe, convenient example and enjoy it."

An _example_. If only anyone really knew how bad an example she was. She had been a mechanic during Albite's rebellion thousands of years ago. She said nothing about her mentor joining a later rebellion and denied any awareness of Peridot 4DF's activities. Her illicit data crystals filled the false bottom chamber of her toolbox and all the little hollows she managed to carve into in her thicker tools. In her hole on Blue Diamond's first colony, buried under a layer of dirt no one would think to disturb, were hundreds more. As long as she stayed quiet and unnoticed, her secrets were safe. The intensely public gifting ceremony was surely going to shine a spotlight on her and her activities until the next example came along to take attention from her.

"If you're not going to indulge, I would like my box back." Star Sapphire's voice cutting into her thoughts was a small mercy; she would likely make herself more anxious the darker those thoughts got.

The corners of the radiation-shielded box had pressed deep indentations into her constructed flesh before she finally let it go enough to return, and she was acutely aware of the way Star Sapphire's fingers brushed over hers when reclaiming the box. The change of topic was an opportunity for relief that she would have to be flaked not to take. "I never expose myself to that kind of thing. Why do you always offer?"

"I still have my manners, Peridot." Star Sapphire's smile was thin and just as mysterious as always. She placed the box in her lap and folded her hands over it, for which Peridot was thankful. The heft of it concerned her, for increased weight implied thicker shielding, which in turn meant that Star Sapphire had moved on to a stronger source.

Peridot's fingers laced together as she tried to consider how to adjust to the changes to her life. For one thing, she would have to research further into the care of pearls. The subject had never interested her before because she never thought it would ever be an issue for her. Then there was the process of getting used to a private space for herself, rather than the exposed space of the peridot cubbies. Could she risk relocating her data crystals to it? What could she even _do_ with a pearl? She was perfectly self-sufficient and saw no appeal in the kinds of things other gems used pearls for.

"How much time do I have left?" she asked at last. Her fingers ached by the time she finally got up the wherewithal to say something.

"Enough time to address any unfinished business, I should think. Our Diamond likes to schedule these things during the perihelion to take advantage of the lighting." Star Sapphire paused for a long, uncomfortable moment, as if considering something Peridot couldn't see. Her face was blank and unreadable; Peridot might as well have been looking at a glacier.

The moment stretched and blurred into several. Unsure of what to say, Peridot wrung her hands as she considered and dismissed her worries. Finally, she simply blurted it out. "What do you see?"

"That your iolite friend will understand the conditions of your relationship and agree to an amicable parting of ways. It will be better if you take care of that sooner rather than later." Star Sapphire paused for another moment, as if to clarify whatever it was she saw. "I see that you will fall. Do not fight it, for that will only make the inevitable break worse."

 _The inevitable break_. Peridot felt as if she was already flaking. "I'm going to be shattered?"

"Nothing so prosaic." There was a sudden, unsettling grin. "It won't happen for a while yet, but I already envy you. You have been walking that path for a long time now. When the fall comes, I think you may even embrace it."

With all of Star Sapphire's peers gone, either frozen over, harvested, or shattered, it was unsurprising that she would appreciate the idea of nonexistence. She was simply choosing to take the slow way out. Sooner or later Star Sapphire would move on to more and more intense gamma radiation, until her atoms were so scrambled that she could no longer generate her form. The realization made Peridot feel far heavier than the shielded box. It was like watching her mentor slip away all over again.

There was a rustle of blue-grey skirts as Star Sapphire shuffled closer. The box was set aside, and Star Sapphire reached over to pat her knee. She said nothing; there were no words for how she felt.

 .*.

When Peridot arrived at the quire, she was as prepared as she was ever going to be. Iolite accepted the proposal to part ways with all the grace she expected. After all, Iolite was practical and they both knew that their little affair couldn't last in light of the growing social disapproval over different classes of gems fraternizing. A sudden gap in her schedule allowed her to return to her colony to copy data to higher-capacity data crystals, thereby reducing the number she would have to move once she was assigned her quarters. One of her mentor's contacts, a moonstone, handed her a small collection of documentation on pearls to review.

In her research, which included those documents and files she was able to find on her own, she had come across a number of facts to better help her in the new direction her life would soon take. They were: 

> 1) Quarters needed regular maintenance. This was usually done by albites or bismuths assigned to the sector, and residents had to file work orders with the maintenance supervision peridot. Peridot decided to attend to her own maintenance, as it would be less awkward for everyone involved. The number of peridots who had achieved status enough for quarters on Homeworld were few and far between, and most of them had been made on Homeworld in the first few hundred thousand years to begin with.  
>  2) Pearls were once made from the shards of fallen warrior gems who wanted to continue a life of service to gemkind. That had been before Albite's Rebellion. Afterwards, the shards of criminals and traitors were used to seed pearls. There had never been any signs that pearls remembered who they had been. This was widely seen as a wise choice by Blue Diamond, for it eliminated the need to wait for a shard to become available and allowed criminals and traitors to repay their debt to Homeworld. Some loyalists thought it too kind for traitors and treated pearls accordingly.  
>  3) The practices associated with the care of pearls had changed over the years. Before the change in the types of shards used, care was taken to keep pearls well-maintained. Several old data files recommended daily care with soft washcloths and mineral-rich water. The practice fell out of favor some time since the change in shard sources, after which pearls became more common and were therefore more disposable. As Peridot suspected that she would only ever be this fortunate once, she acquired a small fountain and supply of washcloths. She may not need a pearl, but she certainly wasn't going to make it suffer from neglect.

Everything else she could handle as it came.

Two other gems, a maxixe and a sunstone, waited with her. The maxixe eyed her with the distaste common in beryls of her rarity, while the sunstone revealed her inexperience every time she opened her mouth. Visually, they were near opposites. Maxixe might as well have been an off-color aquamarine; save for the pure sapphire blue of her gem, she could certainly pass as one. Sunstone, being a low-ranking plagioclase, was midway between anorthites and albites in terms of size. The flecks of hematite and copper in her bright red-orange gem manifested themselves as a glittering, warm rainbow sheen on her skin that drew the eye when she moved.

The sunstone she didn't mind so much. Peridot nodded along as Sunstone talked excitedly the new security measures she came up with that she was certain her Diamond was rewarding her for. For her part, Peridot thought it might be better to let Sunstone believe that this was genuinely about _merit_ and not a show put on to encourage lower class gems to fantasize that they too could be in her place if they just tried hard enough and were loyal enough to gain the Diamonds' favor.

Deep down, Peridot _wanted_ to believe the fantasy. She excelled as a Kindergartener, despite the impurities that made grasping abstract concepts difficult and shape-shifting tools out of herself a constant struggle. She learned her lesson after Albite's Rebellion and it was further hammered in when the tanzanites interrogated her after her mentor's participation in another failed revolution. Loyalty incentivized through fear was just as good as any other, wasn't it? Since the interrogation, she talked loud enough and long enough that she was sure she convinced anyone lurking in the shadows that she knew her place. She simply needed to convince herself. And yet, and yet…

The audience for gifting ritual was small, for these things happened ever so often. After a period of unrest, these things were staged to demonstrate that obedience and dedication would be rewarded, and they were usually designed to impress newly-emerged gems. There was room enough in the aisles for a larger audience, but only the central nave had a vaulted ceiling tall enough for a Diamond. Glass tiles lined the walls and columns, while stained glass windows let in light tinted in the colors of the Diamonds. At the angle in which the sunlight entered the basilica through the windows, it glinted off the glass tiles and bounced off reflective surface after reflective surface until the entire interior seemed to glow with a soft light. Peridot suspected that the bismuths had a few more centuries before the gradual change in axial tilt would force them to reposition the entire building just to retain the lighting effect.

Blue Diamond waited at her throne in the apse at the back of the building. Above the semicircular recess in which Blue Diamond's throne was set was an arcing half-dome. Windows nestled in the panels between vault ribs drew in light and angled it around Blue Diamond herself. The lighting set her aglow, making her look like she was crowned with stars. It was an astounding effect, made all the more unique by the fact that no magic or advanced technology was needed to create it. The bismuth who had planned and built this basilica was a genius.

Peridot and Maxixe saluted their Diamond and bowed instantly once the ceremony began, and Sunstone followed their example so quickly that almost no one would have noticed the lapse. A tall, lovely grandidierite with her gem in her throat began. The speech was the same as every one before, deviating only in the details: a little something about how the ceremony began as a gesture of gratitude for the receiving gem's service and loyalty, something about how Blue Diamond herself had reviewed their files and selected the most worthy gems, what the receiving gem did to earn their reward, and so on until the gifting. Peridot and Maxixe had heard it before, and the beryl looked almost bored by the proceedings. Sunstone listened with the rapt attention of the newly-made.

For exposing a terrorist conspiracy and taking actions that resulted in the arrest and punishment of twenty-six gems, some of which were high-ranking, Maxixe was awarded a new pearl. The pearl was given to her dissipated and in a box provided by a moonstone. Sunstone's reward for her loyalty and security enhancement proposals were assigned quarters and a pearl, and it too was offered in a box that kept it from forming. Peridot expected most of what the grandidierite said about the reasons for her rewards: a long life of service, exemplary performance in Kindergarten development, unwavering loyalty.

Peridot held the pearl's box as gingerly as she could through Blue Diamond's ending speech, which hadn't changed in all the time Peridot had been alive. The box was a deceptively light little thing, and wedged under a rib of decorative filigree was a small card with the sector identity and quarters assignment number stamped into it. Up until the moonstone handed her the box, none of it felt real.

Once Blue Diamond and her pearl left the basilica, they were all dismissed to go their separate ways. While the audience chamber emptied and Maxixe left without so much as an acknowledgement towards them, Sunstone started pestering her with quick, near-breathless questions.

"Hi! You make gems, right? I don't think I'm going to be this lucky again, so uh… Do you have any advice? For, like, taking care of my pearl? Everyone says you don't really need to _do_ anything to maintain them, but I'd think if _anyone_ knew for sure, it'll be a peridot." Sunstone finished with a lopsided grin. That Sunstone cradled the pearl's box close to her chest did not escape Peridot.

Peridot warmed to her quickly, though perhaps that was because Sunstone was inexperienced and seeking guidance. She was always more permissive with a willing student. " _Moonstones_ make pearls. It's an entirely different process from Kindergartening. However, I did some research and it might help you. What is your full designation?"

"Oh! Sunstone, Yellow Diamond colony seven, Facet-6K5 Cut-8RN."

Great Maker, Sunstone could have emerged _yesterday_. Or, at least, within the past century. Peridot made a mental note of the identity string. "I'll send you documentation later, but for now you should consider filling out a requisition form for a calcium carbonate-rich water fountain and a set of soft cloths. Pearls are fragile and require occasional hydration. Would you like me to check it for damage? Gems like us tend to be given used pearls."

Sunstone's face fell, a little. She offered Peridot the box, and Peridot took it and led Sunstone to the dark corner where she had hidden her toolbox before the ceremony. "I thought we would get new ones."

"As long as they're well-maintained, there's nothing wrong with used goods," Peridot responded absently as she knelt and arranged the boxes around her by order of use. She opened her toolbox and plucked her loupe and lantern out of their designated places, and opened Sunstone's pearl box shortly afterwards. "At least a used pearl is already trained."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right." Sunstone settled on her knees, watching patiently as Peridot set up the lantern and stuck the loupe in her eye.

Part of the problem with not being able to shapeshift right was not being able to focus her eyes as well as someone in her position should. The loupe she built from scratch took care of the magnification issue. She examined the round, peach-colored pearl under the harsh white light of her lantern. Aside from some tiny, barely visible scuffs on the topmost layer of the pearl, nothing really stood out to her.

Sunstone leaned over, looking down at the gem in Peridot's hand with her bottom lip bitten in that way that suggested that she had questions and wasn't sure if she should ask them. Peridot offered her both the loupe and gem, which Sunstone took with a grateful look and attempted to mimic Peridot's actions.

"The band you're seeing is something a lot of gems have," Peridot began once she noticed Sunstone examining the band around her pearl. "It's introduced to the gem during the implantation process to improve structural integrity. In the event of shattering, it allows for large, clean fractures and prevents the gem from fragmenting into pieces too small to pick up easily. While its presence is unnecessary for non-combatant gems, most gems are created with them as insurance."

"There's a, I dunno? Scrape? On my pearl." Sunstone's voice sounded tight, upset. She glanced up at Peridot, the loupe in her eye looking almost absurd. "Can you fix it?"

Peridot considered the question perhaps longer than she should have. Small scrapes were nothing compared to the cracks and fissures common in combatant gems. It made her wonder, however. Once a gem was damaged to the point where it affected the projected body's ability to compensate for broken molecular bonds and pathways, she was usually harvested. Wax treatment could only do so much. The Maker's Mark, however, was pure nanotechnology existing in the gaps between molecules, acting as a facilitator for the gem to utilize electromagnetic radiation and cosmic rays for the projection of a body and manipulation of the world around them. If it could be adjusted to repair damage…

"Peridot?"

Reluctantly, Peridot shelved that line of thought and her things back in the toolbox before she stood and spoke. "The scuffs are small and shouldn't affect the pearl's performance. Let it form and watch it for unusual behaviors. If you would still like it treated, send me a missive and allow me a little time to get my quarters set up. Replacing the aragonite platelets shouldn't be hard, but replicating the biopolymers that bind them together might be difficult. Most adhesives are too harsh for pearls. Repairing the scuffs should be possible once that problem is addressed. I'll run a few experiments."

"Thanks!" The grin Sunstone flashed her was almost dazzling. She held her pearl close, only thinking to pick up its box after the fact. "I can't wait for the files!"

With that, Sunstone excused herself and trotted to the warp pad. Peridot picked up her boxes and followed at a more sedate pace.

 .*.

Peridot wasn't disappointed by the fact that the quarters were in one of the older, less affluent sectors of Homeworld. Disappointment, after all, hinged on failure to meet expectations. She had none. Even small quarters were a major step from cubbies. Her quarters were a few sectors away from Star Sapphire's, and that distance hadn't stopped the sapphire from tittering about them being neighbors. Her illicit data crystals were moved from her hole to a storage bin in her quarters, though she retained some second and third generation back-ups in a neglected bit of earth on the first colony as insurance that something would survive if anything happened to her. She filed the requisition forms for modest furnishing and arranged them as appropriate for the rooms once they arrived. The mineral-rich water fountain she acquired for the pearl was installed in the rest chamber and worked perfectly. Everything was in place and ready for occupancy. Everything except the pearl.

The pearl remained in its box to keep it from forming. To the naked eye, it looked perfectly fine. It was a shade of green Peridot appreciated, and she would have been perfectly content to leave it be were it a simple inert gem. There were a few scuffs, but she had expected that. Under magnifying lenses, however, the micrometers-thin fractures radiating from multiple impact points were glaringly obvious. Its past owner had been exceedingly careless with it. A quick pass with the gem scanner revealed that the base shard was that of a larimar, and it was unaffected by the fractures. The pearl would function, but it was very likely to be in significant pain as long as it retained its form. Peridot, being as disinclined as she was towards cruelty, thought it kinder to prevent it from forming until she did something about the fractures.

Being gifted by her Diamond meant also being given some free time to adjust, which her colleagues teased her about. "You'll need the time to get used to the pearl," one of Yellow Diamond's peridots had said with a laugh. "Get it all out of your system so you won't be fantasizing about it when you should be working." _Ugh._

The free time she used to research the Maker's Mark, scavenge the Mark manufacturing unit from an old injector, and figure out how to reprogram the Mark to repair rather than build pathways and process energy. She couldn't replicate the technology, but she could reprogram it through the manufacturing unit. _That_ had taken consultation with an idocrase who had once been indebted to her mentor, and the idocrase helped her with the trickier parts of the programming. Tests on dud gems were promising, with small fractures fully disappearing in the span of a few hours. The modified Mark couldn't handle the task of repairing deep, expansive fractures, which meant that she couldn't use it for repairing heavily damaged or shattered gems. Still, it did what she needed it to.

First she needed to modify the gravity settings in her quarters just shy of zero gravity allowed the liquid medium to stay mostly in place. The modified Mark, suspended in a liquid water medium, was applied at each impact point with a dropper she built out of a tiny, sawn-off funnel and an elastic polymer balloon attached to it. Small portions of the liquid medium were spread out by fingertip along each fracture. Once she was satisfied that she had distributed the liquid medium as evenly as she could, Peridot left it to do its work and filled her time with correspondences and research.

Hours later, she returned to the pearl to examine its progress. But for some mild discoloration in the impact points that were only visible under magnification, there was no sign that it had ever been fractured. While it was too early to claim success, she was optimistic. The true test would be the pearl's formation. She withdrew the pearl from its box and took it to the rest pad to form in its own time. Not that she needed to, she supposed, but it seemed kinder to let it form somewhere safe and comfortable.

The rest of the time she spent writing a missive to Sunstone and preparing a document on the usage of the modified Mark to repair minor damage. Not that many besides peridots and moonstones would read it, but such discoveries ought to be shared. Perhaps she should consider how to develop such a skill in a gem…

A flash of light alerted her to the pearl's formation. Suddenly nervous, she set her tablet aside and reviewed the speech she had prepared. Just before entering the rest chamber, she discarded that pompous attempt at a prepared speech and tried self-assurance, instead. Besides, it was just a pearl. She didn't need to impress it.

The pearl stood like Star Sapphire's did, straight and with hands folded in front of it, its head bowed just slightly in respect. Its skin reminded Peridot of some light green variety of talc, its hair and eyes were that dark, desaturated green of some aegirines. There was a near-transparent skirt over the standard leotard. It was lovely, but pearls were _supposed_ to be lovely. It was part of their appeal. Peridot felt a bit silly for even noticing.

"How do you feel? Any lingering pain?" she asked quickly, and mentally berated herself for jumping right to what she was most curious about.

"No, mistress." The pearl's voice was soft. It might have been beautiful if it wasn't so neutral and devoid of any emotion. Peridot felt some bit of desperate, utterly futile hope fall away with the realization that this pearl wouldn't be any different from the few she had encountered before.

At least the treatment seemed to have worked. Peridot tried not to sigh as she regarded the pearl. Still, she took care of her things, and that now included this pearl. "I'm Peridot Facet-1F2 Cut-2AA. My quarters are yours. You're welcome to use anything you like, or rest when you want. I don't know yet what you'll be doing, so if you have a preference…?"

"I will do whatever you wish, mistress."

That was unhelpful, though not unexpected. She sighed and laced her fingers together in the effort of trying to figure out what to do now. She was at a loss even with all her planning. At least the pearl still talked when prompted. "After you were gifted to me, I took the liberty of repairing the fractures in your gem. I don't know what your previous owner did to cause such damage, but I will not be as careless. In the interest of maintaining your gem and preventing dehydration and further damage, I've developed a care regime based on prior research. Does that agree with you?"

"As you wish, mistress."

Peridot ignored the faint twinge of disappointment at the pearl's subdued responses. It wasn't the pearl's fault that she wanted more than the pearl was capable of giving. She raked her mind to come up with _something_ , and the pearl waited all the while. As she watched the pearl watching her, Star Sapphire's warning resurfaced in her thoughts. _You will fall_. Peridot had no idea why she remembered that _now_.

Thankfully, she was saved by her tablet pinging at her. Sunstone getting back to her, probably. She excused herself automatically, felt a little silly about doing so around a pearl, and turned to answer the message.

 .*.

Pearl was used to long periods of doing nothing, punctuated by fragments of unwanted attention when her owners were bored. When she was still new, she had used that time to wander around and explore Trapiche Emerald's things. She had gotten careless and was beaten for her presumption. The pink zircon who owned her afterwards made her regret ever wanting company. The grandidierite she was gifted to later looked for any excuse to hurt her, and sometimes Grandidierite didn't even need one. Consequently, when her newest owner outright said that Pearl could do whatever she liked in the small quarters that could easily fit in one of Trapiche Emerald's rooms, Pearl had done nothing of the sort. Not for the first few weeks, even when Peridot said she could sit if she wanted to. It felt too much like one of Zircon's traps.

And yet… Peridot had somehow managed to fix the aches caused by Grandidierite's enjoyment of slamming her gem into a nearby wall, and she said nothing about wanting Pearl to do something in appreciation. There had been a moment early on, in which Peridot had a visitor with a pearl come over. She fixed that pearl too, and even when Sunstone pressed the issue she wouldn't take compensation for her work. Pearl did not understand why. At no point did Peridot say she expected anything for her generosity. Even the strange care sessions, in which Peridot wiped her gem with water and a cloth that was almost as soft as her touch, felt… strange. Nice, almost.

When Pearl was finally tired of standing in a corner waiting for orders that never came, she waited until Peridot was gone before taking the opportunity to sit. None of her owners let her, before. The couch saw little enough use even when Peridot _was_ there, because Peridot preferred to work at her bench or lie on the rest pad when she wasn't pacing and talking to her tablet or rambling loudly about something. The couch was soft, welcoming, and that sense that she was doing something wrong that had always been there with her previous owners was absent now. It took perhaps several hours for her to relax, but—

Peridot came in suddenly, glanced at her with something she was sure was surprise, and strode to grab something on the workbench. "You can watch something on the screen if you like," Peridot said as she switched out some tools in her toolbox with the thing she picked up from the workbench. Peridot spoke like she would to a real gem, not a pearl. Pearl felt disoriented every time. "This place is yours, too."

With that, Peridot shut the heavy lid of her toolbox, locked it, and left Pearl to her quarters again.

It took an hour for it to sink in. An hour for her to realize that Peridot didn't have whatever it was that made Trapiche Emerald, Zircon, and Grandidierite cruel. She could keep waiting for the strike, she could flinch all she liked when Peridot made sudden moves, but none of Peridot's moods were ever directed at her. She buried her head in her hands and cried. Whether it was grief over her past or relief that Peridot wasn't going to hurt her, she had no idea. For now, this little bit of freedom was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * At least one of the zircons mentioned isn't in the show. Blue Zircon says herself that she served the court for 4,000 years. The Larimar scene takes place 28,000 years before Rose's Rebellion. Also, Larimar's role in Homeworld society is meant to be sort of a nod to the Korean gisaeng system. 
> 
> * I honestly couldn't tell you where my use of liquid as a nanotech delivery medium came from because I've been reading sci-fi forever, but I've pretty much been using this concept of nanotechnology since Codewalker back when I was in Digimon fandom. So this is just me recycling an old concept. Also, it just gels really well with some other things I'll bring up later.


End file.
